


Denouement

by thesecondseal



Series: Acts of Reclamation [17]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-05-29 22:39:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 22,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6396862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecondseal/pseuds/thesecondseal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In celebration of the completion of Acts of Reclamation, I accepted prompts on tumblr. There were quite a few that fell after Acts so I have gathered them all here in order to share. Some of these fall between the end of Inquisition and the end of Trespasser. As I did not (nor do I intend to) play any of the dlcs, the timeline is not strictly canon compliant. For instance, the trip Cullen and Essa take to South Reach is not post-trespasser, it is before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. For As Long As The Wind Holds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of the first "Before & After" prompts taken on tumblr to celebrate the end of Acts. Essa managed to convince Cari to leave Skyhold (and Ferelden) while the Inquisition marched on the Arbor Wilds (but only because Cari reluctantly understood the strategic importance of her safety). Slothquisitor wanted to know how Cari and Krem spent their weeks away. These are some of their adventures.

The sky was clear when they set out from Clifton. Cari’s heart yearned south and west to Skyhold, but her path was chosen. She and Krem would go north to Jader and there board a ship that would take them…well...anywhere. Another time she might have been excited, but even with Krem’s explanation of Essa’s very good reasons, Cari still felt like she was being sent away. Sera rode with them to port, but she would not be going with them. Of the three, she had the greatest grounds for refusal, and she wasn’t going far. They would need her, if anything went wrong, and she was the only one who knew most of Cari and Krem’s plans. She would retrieve them when it was safe.

Jader was alive and bustling, the particular teeming seethe of a city more trade nexus than settlement. There were permanent houses and businesses of course, but the population of the port waxed and waned with the harbor’s whim and the mercy of the Waking Sea.They traded on Varric’s good name, a dubious value for a tightly run vessel and a captain who called herself an admiral in sweet tones that didn’t seem to galvanize her crew any less than the opposite might have. The winds were with them, and while Cari didn’t know—or care—where they were going, she knew they would get there fast.

She spent the first day in the bow of the ship, or as close as she could get without disrupting the barrels and crates stored beneath a tight stretch of tarp. She spoke little with the crew, little more with Krem, though not for want of ease between them. Cari watched the sea, eyes skating toward the far horizon almost desperately, longing for the odd cap of wave or spray of foam, greedily watching for any sign of the creatures Essa had so long wondered lived in the deep.  The first breach of sailfish stole her breath and she tried to commit the large blue fish to memory.

“You want one?” one of the sailor’s asked, witnessing her fancy. “They’re good eatin’. Captain lets us fish for them on still days.”

Cari was torn between wanting the creature to have its freedom and wanting to see one close up.

“Are there so many in the sea?” she asked.

“Yeah,” the boy grunted, gapped tooth smile drawing hers in answer. “You could say that.”

She followed the long line of his arm, watched a dozen leap from the grey-green waters.

“Oh!” she pulled her book from her pocket, piece of charcoal flying to her fingers as she hurriedly sketched. “I will wait for that still day, ser. But I thank you.”

The crew did not know quite what to make of the fine lady with smudged and clever fingers, but they were quick to point out to her the different creatures that leapt from the sea, to give her tales of monsters that clung to ships’ bellies and storms full of wind and great serpentine limbs. If she did not quake and swoon as they thought they should, no one said aught of it and soon her smile was as welcome on deck as the throaty laugh of their captain.                                                           *

Their first night upon the _Siren’s Call_  was not exactly what Cari expected. Not that she could have said precisely what that was when they set out. The room given to her and Krem was small but neatly furnished. A pair of not quite narrow bunks built into one wall, a porthole the size of her face that could be opened to let in fresh air. There was a small barrel of water, a chamber pot, and a large flat-topped chest bolted to the floor for their belongings. It would serve, she was told, as a desk, should her ladyship require it. The first mate was kind enough to give her a box of tacks and a small hammer.

“You can hang up your sketches,” the stout man said, voice deeper than the sea upon which they sailed. He jerked his chin toward the empty wall above the trunk. “If you’ve coin, I imagine we might find some larger paper than that tiny book you carry.”

“Some of the men might trade you.” He stared at her in frank appraisal, long enough to let her misinterpret his offer. “You’ve a good hand for drawing. You ever try portraits?”

She was too stunned to do more than thank him. That night, while she tried not to think about Krem sleeping in the bunk above her, Cari worked in coarse charcoal and fine graphite passable likenesses of him, the  _Siren’s_ beautiful captain, and the first mate. When she finally fell asleep, lulled by the rocking of the ship and Krem’s restful snores, she dreamed of painting again.

*

Cari had never shared such close quarters with another person. Even her small closet room at Clifton had been hers alone. Krem should have been better at managing the lack of privacy. He had kept his secrets while serving in the army, lived with an entire company of mercenaries, but none of this was quite the same as sharing a room with the woman he loved.

She was an early riser, and even Krem, accustomed to being first to greet the morning, was hard-pressed to wake before her. He knew that she feigned sleep until he was dressed for the day, but he couldn’t bring himself to mind, not watching her lie soft and sweet in her bunk, long dark braid curling across her pillow. The dawn loved her nearly as much as he did, sweeping across her face in shades of rose and gold. Her lashes were mink smudges against fair cheeks, eyelids smooth and still. Cari’s lips twitched once before she licked her lips, lifted the corners in a gentle smile.

“Good morning,” she whispered without opening her eyes. She wouldn’t, not until he told her he was dressed.

“Good morning.” Krem cleared his throat, leaned over her in nothing but his trousers and binder to brush a kiss over her brow. She smelled like lavender and ice, even three days out to sea where everything and everyone else was half-brined.

Cari’s hands curled against the light coverlet. Her nails were faintly glossed. Something shiny like the inside of a shell that she said protected them from the salt. Krem looked as his hands beside hers, blunt, coarse, skin so much darker. Strong hands, he thought, the hands of a man who worked and fought and provided. 

She made him feel more himself, just by being.

“I love you,” he murmured, watching her cheeks flush warmer than the sunrise.

Her smile grew, eyes crinkling at the corners, and her hand moved slightly, fingers brushing soft against his knuckles.

“I love you.”

*

They sailed first to Cumberland, and Cari could have spent a month there, a year, and never taken in the fullness of such a majestic city. She and Krem wandered--not far, Captain Isabela had said--along the dockside markets, but occasionally Cari would find herself staring inland.  

“We’ll come back,” he promised, handing her a near thornless lavender rose that he’d bought from a vendor. “When all of this is over. Spend as much time as you like. The Dragon’s Den is a sight.”

“I’d like that,” Cari said, gaze turning south and west, wondering what war raged in a distant jungle.

She tucked the rose into the wide brim of her hat, leaned into to kiss his cheek while the sun shone bright and the breeze rustled the long loose waves of her hair. She marveled that she could feel so much herself, so far from all that had ever defined her.

“I would like that a great deal.”

They took lunch in a small café, fed one another shellfish steamed in thick green leaves and tart fruit served with sweet cream. Afterward, he didn’t complain when she wasted hours in sprawling bookstore. Cari found a tome on siege engines for Cullen, the writing was so dry she thought the book would crumble in her hands, but there were schematics! She bought a book on Divine Age heresies for Essa, and a lewd picture book for Sera that made her ears burn bright and pink just to be caught—by a stranger she would likely never see again—buying the thing. That she did so with a perfectly level gaze would forever be a source of pride for her and of gentle teasing from Krem.

They bought fruit and nuts and a lighter linen dress for Cari, a thick quilted vest for Krem that would still provide structured lines but not be nearly as sweltering as the leather armor he had worn for their trip. It was embroidered in bold geometric patterns, shades of russet and brown, with laces that could be worn loose or tight on the sides.

He wasn’t sure about it, he said, but it was nice to think about. Cari held his hand as they walked, took his contemplative silence for the trust that it was. When she and Krem returned to the ship, there were two wrapped parcels on top of their trunk. He made some excuse to leave her to them, which was just as well. She unwrapped  _Cumberland: A History and Guidebook_  then moved to the fine lines of a lap easel. When she opened the drawer to find neat rows of watercolors and oils, a half dozen different brushes, Cari sat in the floor and wept, tears sweet with gratitude, bitter with fear.

*

The weeks were kind and she learned to breathe on her own with the  _Siren’s Call_  began her return route. They were welcome on board again anytime, Captain--Admiral--Isabela assured her, eyes sparkling beneath the brim of her magnificent hat. It had not taken the crew long to decide that Cari was a bit of a luck charm, and who was she to argue?

Fair winds and calm seas had waited them, followed them, and while Cari did not know what schedule they kept to, the captain announced them so far ahead that they spent two days on small, sunny island as reward. There was rum and music, swimming and fishing. Cari collected shells during the day, and at night she wore her linen dress and danced barefooted in the soft white sand with men and women she would never have looked in the eye, let alone had the honor of getting to know. She had painted no few of them in those sun-drenched days, faces dark and cragged beneath jaunty hats, eyes caught in a perpetual squint from so much time amid the sun’s sea cast reflection. The water was bright, constant aching glints of light and hue, and such light left marks of one sort or another.

Cari was humbled by the stories she was told as she put features to paper. Tales of love lost and fortunes sought, families pined for. The sea could be a cruel mistress, but mistress she was, and as many as loved her, hated her, passion as fierce as the relentless currents and inconstant winds.

“I thought myself a storm once,” she confessed to the darkest, thinnest hours of the night.

The stars were finely cut diamonds overhead and only Krem, Isabela, and Davyd were left awake to those late watches.

“Did you?” Isabela’s smugness was not the affront it had once been, and Cari smiled, the warmth of Krem’s laugh traveling through his chest and into her back.

He had worn the vest today, over undyed linen and heavy canvas trousers. His feet were still bare, toes brushing hers as she sat between his drawn up knees.

“I did.” Cari shook her head as Davyd offered her his pipe. The first mate shrugged, drew deeply on the lip, blew something sweet toward the glittering firmament.

“Maybe you were,” he mused, darting a glance toward his captain. “Seen a lot of water, a lot of sky. Never saw a storm that raged forever.”

Isabela laughed, eyes distant, thoughts with one who might.

“I suppose not,” Cari said, snuggling back into Krem’s strong arms, dropping her head to his shoulder and staring up at the sky. “What do you do when it stops?”

“You thank whatever gods claim you,” Davyd replied easily. “And you sail.”

He took another draw on his pipe.

“For as long as the wind holds.”


	2. Sway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry! I almost forgot to post this one! Prompted by happywife416 with Tarantism (the urge to overcome melancholy by dancing) for Krem and Cari. Someone else also asked for Cari and Krem slow dancing, so here you go, a bit of quiet fluff after Cullen and Essa's wedding.

The night was loud and joyous, the stars themselves seeming the shake in the firmament, diamond light trembling in time to the boisterous music that wound through the keep. There had been more bondings than Cullen and Essa’s on this Summerday, most of which the Inquisitor had been asked to bless. She had done so with her usual careless grace, hands and heart warmer than most expected, but the day had worn on her as they knew it would, and her new husband had spirited her away. Cari tried not to remember the last time she had seen her sister off on her wedding day. There was no reason to fear the tragedy that had followed on that night so many years ago, but the echoes, even spun now in happiness rather than sorrow, lingered.

And so Cari lingered with them in the shadows outside the tavern, while laughter and song, and more…vigorous sounds…of people’s revelry filled the night. She should retreat to her quarters, she knew. She had not been here the year before, had spent the holiday in the more sedate atmosphere of the then newly growing Clifton. She had been unprepared.

A body bumped into her, jostled her against a rain barrel and Cari flinched, took a slow breath and summoned a smile even as the accidental offender called an apology along with a “Happy Summerday, my lady!” The voice was young and breathless, titters caught behind the shivering syllables like dew in a spider’s web. Cari called something forgiving back, as she righted herself against the wall.

“Are you alright?” He still moved so gently around her and Cari wanted to bask in the warmth of his voice, the careful touch of his hand to her elbow only after she had turned to face him.

“I’m fine.” Cari smiled, stepped into an embrace that always waiting. She was finding it easier and easier to reach out to him as the months went by. He was hers and she was his and they were home.

Krem’s arms slipped around her, hands spreading wide across her back as he drew her close, tucked his chin to her shoulder. He wasn’t wearing armor, just a loose tunic and vest and she had been reeling all day that he had opted for plainclothes rather than his plate. She could feel his heart beating against her chest. They had not stood so close without his armor between them.

“Alright?” she asked on a whisper, fingers curling against heavy cotton.

“Yeah,” he said roughly, cheek pressing warm to hers.  

His shoulders flexed, strong muscles shifting his shoulder blades beneath her hands.

“You looked sad,” Krem murmured, embrace tightening just a bit in comfort.

“Old memories,” Cari admitted. “I saw her off that afternoon with Diar too.”

“Of course you did.”

His breath was soft on her neck.

“My lady.” The words were love between them. “You should have told me.”

“I’m telling you now,” she teased, forcing melancholy tension from her with a long exhale.

The music changed, the early morning hours called, just behind the dark horizon. Maryden’s lute was replaced by Fin’s lap harp, and something slow and sweet began to drift from the tavern. Cari didn’t recognize the song, but she knew love’s sad splendor when she heard it.

“Will you dance with me?” Krem asked, even as they stood so close she could hardly move. The fullness of her skirt was all but crushed against his legs.

“I would.” Cari could scarce hear herself over the sudden pounding of her pulse. “But I don’t know that I want to put so much distance between us.”

The layers of fabric between them were more than his concession to the events of the day and they both knew it. Krem brushed a kiss over her cheek, stepped them away from the wall of the tavern with a chuckle. She was dizzy and breathless as he spun them both from the shadows and into the silver fall of moonlight. Cari blinked away glad tears as they came out of the last turn. She stood, one foot between his, chest tight as his hands moved to the back her waist.

“Then we’ll just sort of sway together,” he said. “If that’s alright.”

“Yes.” Cari sank into the divergence of their heartbeats, waited for the gentle movement of their bodies and the insistence of the music to twine them together into one steady pulse. “That’s more than alright.”

 


	3. Apple Tarts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluffy, smutty drabble. previously posted under Cullen drabbles. first summer, post-inquisition. not long after Cullen and Essa were married.

 

“What are you doing?” Cullen asked, drawing up short upon entering the dimly lit kitchen. 

Essa’s head snapped toward him in surprise, guilt flushing her cheeks bright and rosy, even in the low light. She was wearing the sleeveless brown robe that Josephine hated. The skirt was tied up high in surprisingly artful swags to a worn leather belt. Her leggings were patched in too many places, myriad squares a mendicant’s riot. Her feet were bare, and almost clean.

He hadn’t seen her in a week. Cullen thought she looked beautiful, even as she scowled at him.

“What are _you_ doing?” she retorted, scrambling for an acceptable answer.

She turned toward him, hands and wooden counter concealed behind her back.

“Sneaking pastries,” he answered easily enough. “Ola spoils me. There’s always a treat hidden in here for me.”

Cullen walked over to a small stoneware crock tucked into the back corner of another prep counter.  “I was hoping for an apple tart.”

He frowned in disappointment to find the crock empty. Denied his midnight snack, Cullen’s attention returned immediately to Essa. She had gotten in late, and the note she sent had promised that she would meet him once she had bathed and been debriefed by Leliana. He’d had no reason to expect to find her in the kitchen. According to Essa, she had—after over a year in the field—managed only a fairly decent stew.

Cullen walked toward her, a smirk lifting one side of his mouth. Essa jerked her chin, sending an errant braid back behind her ear.  Her skin was darker; her face, just a little sunburnt, caused a heavier scattering of summer freckles to stand out on the crooked bridge of her nose.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing?” he asked, peering over her shoulder into the shadows at her back. “Or am I going to have to look for myself?”

Essa glared at him and almost pulled her hands forward to stop him from getting too close. He watched as she caught the impulse, holding her hands fast behind her and puffing out her chest to take up more space.  Her breasts teased against the loose fall of his shirt and Cullen smiled.

“You already had my attention,” he murmured, knowing the effect a low confession always had upon her.

Essa glared at him, and Cullen ignored her, bending to place a soft kiss on her cheek. There was a smudge of flour following her jawline. He wiped it away, bare fingers lingering in whispers. Her pulse drummed behind her skin, earning a sweetly placed kiss as he tasted the frantic leap of her heart.

She reached for him, but Cullen caught her hands, kept them behind her back.

“Don’t you dare,” the admonishment was murmured against her neck. “You’ll have me covered in flour.”

Her felt her tense and for a moment Cullen had a very clear vision of Essa’s flour-covered hands coming forward in attack. It would be glorious, he thought with a smile. Definitely worse than the time he and Mia had gotten into a kitchen fight, but Ola would not find their waste of food amusing, and neither would Essa in the aftermath of impulse. He held fast to her wrists, waited for her self-restraint to catch up before stroking his hands slowly up her arms. His thumbs swept into the valleys of her elbows, across the fainter echo of the pulse beneath his lips.

Essa sighed and arched more fully against him.

“It’s supposed to be a secret,” she mumbled, head tipping back to offer him better access to her throat.

His smile sharpened, nipped gently at taut skin.

“I thought _we_ ,” he emphasized the plural with a slightly harder bite. “Weren’t ever going to keep secrets.”

The sentence was punctuated with another nip and Essa’s knees began to tremble. She forced the bow of her body back against the table with a frown, but the heat he saw blooming in her eyes was not from ire. Cullen slipped his hands beneath the gathers of her skirt, palms resting on her legging-clad hips. The touch was all the more powerful for its easy familiarity.

“I asked Ola to teach me,” Essa said, looking away with uncommon shyness. “When I found out about your pastry crock. I don’t get to do it often, but when I’m home—“

She broke off, dipping one shoulder forward to push at him in discomfiture. “I brought apples from the Hinterlands. You would never have known if you had kept to your routine,” she griped. “You’re hours early.”

He stared down at her, speechless, which was just as well. He knew he would have to soften her up before he could tell her what the gesture meant to him.

“I wanted to get back to my office,” he explained instead, nuzzling back in toward her pout. “I was hoping you’d stop by after your meeting with Leliana.”

Her lips parted around his name just before he kissed her, a slow lingering to torture them both.

“I missed you,” she managed breathlessly, when he pulled away.

“I missed you,” he agreed. “So, why in Andraste’s name are you here making pastries when I cleared my desk for you an hour ago?”

Essa blushed. Not a gentle flush of a demur rose. No. Blood rushed into her face and neck. Scarlet splotched the freckles beneath her collarbones. The scar beneath her ear stood out bright and white in its slash down toward her pulse. It was the first time Cullen had ever gotten the better of her; he finally understood why she teased him so mercilessly.

“Maker’s breath!” he exclaimed, laughing as he pulled her into a hug. He gazed down at her fondly. “You should see your face!”

“Haha,” Essa grouched, bumping him away just enough to turn back to her work. “Very funny. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I didn’t miss you that much.”

Cullen placed a warm kiss on the back of her neck, hands coming again to rest higher and with a taunt upon her hips. Essa groaned.

“This would go a lot faster, if you would behave,” she said, quickly transferring tarts to pan.

She was surly; he knew by now it was not with him, but her own impatience.

“Or,” he countered, teeth skimming the neckline of her dress as his fingertips brushed along the waistband of her leggings. “You could be very, very quiet.”


	4. Bathing Folly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously posted one shot, moved here for proper chronology. This can also be found under the Cullen drabbles. Post-inquisition. This would be that first summer after Corypheus was defeated and Cullen and Essa were wed. Cullen x Essa, Geri, Folly. Ponies and fluff. Also Michel de Chevin.

The summer sun shone brightly on Smoke’s Valley. Only the highest peaks of the Frostbacks bore snow that would always linger. The sky was a clear blue, achingly empty of clouds. The day yawned around them like eternity waiting to be filled with the best intentions, but horses didn’t feel the tether of those far reaching expectations. They did not fight against potential futures; they merely carried their pasts with implacable dignity, living only for every present.

It still amazed Cullen that as Michel explained horses to him, he felt he was learning more of Essa.

Folly snorted softly, calling him back from his thoughts. A sound that he had once taken for ire, he had since learned was more often a contented sigh. The difference could be as simple as a head tilt or the swish of a tail. Cullen rubbed the filly’s neck. He was still learning and today had been a good day.

“Take our lady down to the falls,” Michel said, tossing Cullen a soft rope halter. “She has worked very hard today.”

Cullen had to agree. That the training felt more like play in no way detracted from the amount of energy it took. He and Folly had both worked up a considerable sweat in the heat. Cullen all the more since they were getting her accustomed to his armor. He caught the halter, smiling with pride when Folly neither flinched nor reared as the tack sailed toward her. She had been a little head-shy when they first started, though not in the usual way. Where some horses startled away from sudden movements, especially near their heads, the filly had a tendency to meet them with aggressive defense. She was a little warrior, his Folly.

Cullen could only hope she would forgive him for being a hopeless infantryman.

He held the halter open for her, and she nuzzled his hands before slipping her nose down into the tightly knitted cotton. Michel had said nothing the day Cullen brought his first attempt to the stable, and for a moment he had thought the man was silently judging him a sentimental fool. Then he had shown Cullen the proper sliding knots to adjust the fit.

“You will want a bucket,” the chevalier called as Cullen led Folly out of the round pen. “And towels.”

Cullen paused. “She can’t just dry in the sun?”

Michel laughed. “Not for her, Commander. For you.”

Cullen thanked him for the morning’s lesson and headed to the stable. Folly pranced along beside him, hooves kicking up a fine dust as they entered the stable. Cullen dropped a rope in his tack box just in case, and threw a towel over the top for good measure. The little horse waited attentively as he quickly removed his armor. When he caught himself stacking it neatly in front of her stall, Cullen laughed. He was getting as bad as Essa.

Folly received two treats for her patience and then they were off to the falls. He imagined they made quite the picture, the Inquisition’s general and the not yet a yearling who trotted beside him, leadless, coat gleaming like cloth-of-gold in the early afternoon light. She could have tried for a snack as they made their way through the fields. The corn was young and sweet, oats a temptation of rich green behind its fence, but Folly paused only once to sneak a cheek scratch from one of the young women working at the irrigation trench.

They followed the well-beaten dirt path past the grain silo that was still under construction. It would lay in the shadow of the mountain for most of the day. Just beyond, the stone rose in a sharp grey vertical and from high above, a clear fall of cold water pitched into the valley, filling a deep tarn before flowing out into a wide, shallow stream.

“Well,” Cullen said softly as he and Folly drew to a halt a few dozen paces away. “Aren’t they something?”

Essa and Geri were standing knee-deep in the water, just beyond the stones that lined the pool edge, where the stream began rippling out over pebbles and sand to warm beneath the sun. For the moment, the bay appeared to be standing quietly, but somehow Essa was soaked from head to toe. Her linen tunic clung, leaving not a single familiar curve to Cullen’s imagination. Her cotton trousers hung close against her legs, the cuffs rolled up to reveal hard muscle, darkly tanned skin, and no few scars. Her feet were bare. A smirk curved her lips as she lifted one to kick water against Geri’s legs.

The horse looked so offended that Cullen couldn’t help laughing. Essa turned her grin from Geri and before she could call a greeting, the forder caught the back of her tunic in his teeth and lifted her off her feet.  Essa squealed with laughter, flailing back one foot an instant before the horse dropped her with a heavy splash into the water below. It wasn’t deep enough for her to submerge upon impact, but she landed in an indecorous, sputtering tangle that seemed to please Geri immensely.

Cullen dropped his tack box carefully to the ground as he and Folly jogged forward. Even though Essa was chortling, he couldn’t quite dismiss his concern. He was still learning proper horse and rider behavior, and he was pretty sure that what he had just witness wasn’t normal.

“Are you alright?” he asked wading into the water to reach a hand down to her.

Geri stared down his long white blaze at the two of them. Essa was still laughing as she took Cullen’s hand and let him haul her to her feet.

“Were you ogling me again?” she asked plucking at her sodden tunic.

“I might have been.”

She held out her hand in teasing and Cullen grinned.

“I thought we worked that out in trade now.”

Essa’s smile threatened the sun with its broadening joy. “It is a nice arrangement,” she said, leaning up to brush a kiss across his lips.

Geri lashed out then, one front leg plunging into the water, sending up a broad plume that splashed both of them. Cullen’s quiet shout of indignation earned a fresh flood of giggles from Essa.

“Instant returns,” she mused, reaching one hand back to pat Geri’s wet neck in appreciation. “Have I told you that you’re my favorite?”

Cullen stared down into darkening grey eyes. 

“Are you talking to me or your horse?” he asked as her body heat pressed through their wet clothes to warm his skin.

“Both.”

She reached for him, hands tracing the muscles of his chest beneath damp cotton. Cullen lowered his lips to hers and kissed her properly, until Essa sighed praises into his mouth and melded against him.

“Ow!”

He felt her stiffen an instant before she pulled back. Cullen stared down at her for a brief moment of confusion before Folly shoved her nose between them, eyes narrowed and ears pinned flat to her head. Essa pushed the filly away with a laughing reprimand.

“Oh, no, my lady,” she said, voice losing all mirth as she walked forward a step, her presence alone forcing Folly to back up. “We do not bite.”

“Well, sometimes,” Cullen said, earning a glare from Essa.

“We do not joke about that with impressionable young ones,” she said, lifting her tunic to reveal a bright curve reddening one hip.

She never broke eye contact with Folly.

“Your lady is a jealous one,” she informed him.

Cullen sighed. “I suppose one of you had to be. Better her.”

Essa nodded, waited patiently for Folly to drop her head.

“Good girl,” she murmured, reaching up to scratch behind her ear. “Now how about a bath?”

 


	5. The Tale of the Burning Princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted with: “I'm curious if Hope's parents ever tell her stories about her biological parents. And if so, i would love a prompt about it ;) ;) ;)”. 
> 
> This falls right after Acts. Fin, Cullen, Hope, and Nadie. beware the feelings. There are quite a few.

“It doesn’t bother you that she left you?” Nadie asked. There was no censure or judgment in her tone, just the somewhat shocked curiosity of a child who had grown up knowing a loving and present birth mother.

“It bothers me a bit that she had to,” Hope shrugged, leaning back upon her hands, face tipped up to the summer sun. “But that she gave me to Mum and Da?”

She shook her head. “They are mine and I am theirs. Doesn’t matter much how the Creators or the Maker got me to them.”

Nadie nodded, her knitting needles clacking softly as she accepted the wisdom of the other girl at face-value. They were close enough of age, though Hope was a winter baby and Nadie had celebrated her thirteenth birthday early that spring.

“Of course, Essa could be ours too,” Hope continued swinging her feet and staring hard at the hapless wreck of yarn on the needles in her lap. Nadie had been trying to teach her for a week, but her hands were not suited to the work, her body not accustomed to the comparative idleness. She ran her hands across the stone beneath her, leaned forward enough on her perch to make Nadie gasp.

“Out of the crenellation,” Cullen called from the open door of his office. “Your mother is worried enough about your woeful lack of respect for heights, Hope.”

Hope snickered, but hopped down obligingly enough to sit on the walkway adjacent to Nadie. Cullen nodded once and vanished back inside.

“Cullen too,” Hope added with a grin. “He’s good people.”

“He is.” And if Nadie was a little possessive of the general, who could blame her? She’d had him longer.

“And I guess I was wrong,” Hope said on a sigh, stretching her arms out in front of her. She was getting restless, but she had yet to talk Nadie into leaving the keep without Essa, so there was little chance of an afternoon ride unless Hope found someone else to go with her. “He’s exactly what I should have expected.”

Nadie paused in her work, bright green yarn hanging still from the dish scrubber she was making.

“What do you mean?”

Hope stared at Nadie for a moment, considering. She liked Nadie, quite a lot, but then Hope hadn’t met many people she didn’t. Da claimed she got that from Diarmont.

“My favorite story when I was little was the one about the burning princess.”

Nadie frowned, brows dropping shadows of confusion over her brown eyes and Hope smiled. 

“I didn’t know Mum had made it up until I was old enough to be told I had come from another woman’s womb.” She chewed on the edge of one thumb nail. “But I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know the Tale of the Burning Princess. I thought she would never smile again...”

“Will you tell us?” Cullen asked quietly but still startling them both.

He had approached with his usual light step, stopped just before his shadow fell across them. Hope nodded to the stones beside her and he sat, armor clanking and rustling as he settled back against the wall.

“It’s very sad,” she warned them, feeling suddenly and uncharacteristically nervous, as if the story her mother had murmured into the drift of so many nights had all at once become something more than a bedtime tale. “It was always more than just a story,” Hope admitted. “I just didn’t know it then.”

Nadie reached across the sundrenched space between them, patted Hopes folded knee comfort. Hope smiled at her in an attempt at reassurance, took a breath and stole her nerves.

“Once upon a time,” she began, letting the long memorized words and cadence establish the rhythm of her breathing. “There was a beautiful knight. His hair was as black as coal, his eyes as green as summer on the headlands of the Marches, and when he laughed even the greyest day felt like spring’s return.”

Hope closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the wall. She didn’t notice when she shifted close enough to press her shoulder to the outside of Cullen’s arm, but she noticed when he didn’t pull away.

“For years he and his family roamed the land, righting great wrongs and entering contests of skill. They became something of a legend, helping those without coin just as often as those with it.”

Hope chuckled. “The knight was generous with his laugh, some say too generous with his kisses, though such is not for us to decide.” She knew better now, why her mother’s grin always turned a little sad at these lines. “One winter, the knight and his family traveled to a city by the sea, a place of markets and myths, and many different faces. There were beautiful women there from all over the world, and the knight’s brother was certain they would hear stories of the knight’s mischief all winter long.”

Nadie giggled. Hope glanced back to her audience to find an impish smile on Nadie’s lips, something softer, sadder lifting Cullen’s scar. She wondered how much he knew of the real story, could only reckon it was more than she did.

“But this was not to be.” She paused, as her mother always did, balancing and denying expectation as the wind blew warm against their faces. Hope yawned. It had been her bedtime story for as long as she could remember after all.

“In that same city, there lived a princess, somber and solemn with hair as rich as loam and eyes like flint.”

“Was she beautiful?” Nadie asked, caught up in the tale, and this time it was Hope who giggled.

“No.” She grinned. “Not even a bit.”

Beside her Cullen grunted, but remained otherwise silent.

“The princess was a warrior, and what beauty had passed from her mother had been captured fully by her older sister. It was just as well, for Donya had no need for beauty and no patience either. She lived a life of books and training. There was none who could best her with sword and shield, but were it not for the four-legged folk and a stableboy, Donya’s life would have been empty.”

“She left out her father,” Cullen interjected. Hope glanced at him in surprise.

“Really?”

He nodded. “He was not a father such as you and I had, but he loves her. He gave her the books and the horses. Fought for her to have the freedom to all but live in the barn with her mabari mother, the horses, and her stableboy.”

“Thank you,” Hope whispered, adding scatterings of happiness to the story in her head. She swallowed. “Where was I?”

“Donya’s life,” Nadie offered quickly.

“Thank you.” Hope took another breath, let it out on a sigh. “Donya’s life would have been empty. It should have been empty, but the princess was content , thinking only of what she could learn each day. When winter settled upon the coast, she sought out the knight, determined to learn what she could of the horseman’s art. She offered coin when he and his family needed it, and easy enough work. The knight accepted, though he found her haughty and plain.”

Cullen did laugh then, a loud soaring that coaxed forth both Nadie and Hope’s own merriment.

“She is,” he agreed. “Still wretchedly haughty.”

“Yes, she is,” Fin said, walking up. “Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all,” Nadie said hastily, for the moment sounding far older than she was. Hope and Cullen exchanged a knowing smirk. One of them was going to have to tell Fin that Nadie was half in love with him. He was the kind would want to be careful of her feelings.

“So,” Fin smiled tentatively at Hope. “Your haughty plain princess?”

“Yes.” Hope cracked her knuckles, stretched her arms before her. “She grew on him. Like mold. And one beautiful spring morning, the knight realized he could not imagine his life without the reluctance of her smile, the disdainful lift of her freckled nose. When she asked him to marry her, he said yes, and they took their vows before his family and their friends on a glorious spring afternoon.”

Something shifted in Fin’s eyes, clouds over a bright summer sky, and Hope realized that he would have been there. Would have seen Essa’s joyful face smiling at Diar across the tourney ring. She stumbled over the familiar lines of treasured narrative.

“Hope?” Cullen’s voice was gentle. “Would you like us to leave you and Nadie to your tale?”

Hope shook her head. It was different, seeing the very real people who had for so much of her life been only a sad, sweet story. Fin would have been her own age when he lost Essa to her magic.

“The princess’s heart was full,” she continued shakily. “Love blazed like a flame, bright and holy, as the knight kissed her beneath the stars, the gladdest he had ever been.”

She couldn’t look at Fin, didn’t dare look at Cullen, but when he offered her his hand, Hope took it, leaned more fully against his arm.

“But such happiness was not to last,” Hope whispered. “The princess’s heart warmed, and then it burned, so fierce and free that only the Fade could answer. She was made mage, and love died that night.”

As a child she had found those terse sentences lacking, but Hope was grateful now to find the horror so simplified.

“The princess despaired, but the knight’s family took her in, secreted her away, kept Donya beyond the reach of the templars, and they prayed. Maker, how they prayed, for the princess’s grief to ease enough that every breath did not break her heart anew.”

Nadie was crying, tears slipping silently down her fair cheeks.

“There cannot be so much sorrow ,” Hope continued. “Without a chance of hope, and so one morning the princess realized that she carried the knight’s child. In the last gasps of winter, a baby girl was born; a child whom the princess loved with all her heart.”

Cullen’s fingers were tight between hers. His glove was cool in the shadows of the wall, a marked contrast to Nadie’s sweaty palm and trembling hand. Hope clung to both of them.

“What happened then?” Nadie dared to ask, voice tremulous.

“The princess knew she could not remain. She had eluded the templars for nearly a year, but she could not ignore her magic. For her heart to be safe for anyone, especially herself, she had to learn to be a mage. She left the babe with the knight’s beloved family. Found her a mother and a father who would love her more than life. 

“The princess locked herself in a tower, surrounded herself with books and learning, but a part of her heart was always for those she had lost, and they kept her memory in return, kept her child like a precious treasure, until that child was their own.”

Hope reached up to hastily wipe a tear from her cheek.

“We lit candles every spring,” she confessed. “On the eve of the Tourney, in remembrance and prayer for the Burning Princess.”

Across from her, Fin nodded and his voice was gruff when he finally spoke. “So did I.”


	6. Shameful, Shameless, Whatever.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SMUT. NSFW. Prompted for smut with “the way you flirt is shameful”. Cullen x Essa, this would be after Inquisition on a trip to South Reach. Because finding time alone can be heck on family trips.

“The way you flirt is shameful.”

The words came out of the dark, a breath of hesitation between the accusation and a searing kiss of retribution. There was just enough time that she could have pushed him way or gotten in a word of negation, but while Essa couldn’t remember what in the Void he was talking about, she wasn’t about to stop Cullen’s lips from crashing down on hers with such purpose. It had been an impossibly long few days, and as they were sharing a room with both Dire and Branson’s son Emmett, she was fairly certain they’d not had a moment alone together since arriving in South Reach.

“Is it?” she asked taking a quick breath before returning her lips to his. She had been forced to leave him behind, trapped between the mabari and his eight year old nephew, but the guilt had not weighed on her nearly as heavily as the cloying air of the house. She had prayed he would find a way to follow her, and now here he was. Perhaps, she  _was_ favored by the Bride.

“Yes.” His teeth and lips were on her neck, hands blazing a rough trail down her body. Cullen’s palms slid over the damp linen of her sleep tunic, and he caught the hem, yanking it over her head.The cool night air hit her overheated skin and Essa sighed, something between bliss and relief. The shirt dropped into the blue-black shadows at her feet and then she was in his arms.

“Andraste’s mabari.” Her hands carded through his hair, but her less than subtle tugs on his rain drenched curls would not direct him from his purpose. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.” Cullen backed her up against the half wall of the empty stall. The wood was hard against her back, cool in the muggy night air.

“Light, Essa.” The plea was a wet rasp beneath her ear. He sucked the lobe between his teeth, and his hand brushed her chin, offering his thumb to her lips. She licked at him, dragged his knuckle into her mouth to muffle her moans as he ran gentle fingers over rapidly pebbling skin. “Please. I need to see you.”

The entreaty wrapped around her heart, spiraled lower and tighter to threaten her already trembling knees. Essa let go of his hair to fumble for the wall behind her, focused her will enough to light the lantern that hung in the middle of the barn. The wick was short, and the golden light that spun out from the glass was no more than dusky umber by the time it reached them at the end of the long aisle. Cullen’s eyes were amber shadows, sullen and wicked as he stared down at her, hair tousled, white shirt nearly transparent where it was plastered to his skin. She reached for him, but he caught her wrists, pressed them back to the wall behind her.

“All day,” he complained, harsh breath stirring linen over storm-cooled flesh. He kissed his way down her neck, teased his tongue beneath the top of her breastband until she whimpered.

“The store,” he recounted, words rumbling over aching want. “The chantry.” He seemed absolutely scandalized with this last. “You made not the least attempts at subtlety.”

“I’m sorry?” She was fairly certain she wouldn’t have been even if she did have the first idea of what he was going on about.

“You are not,” Cullen muttered, fingers dragging over her breastband to circle around the desperate peak of one breast. Her nipple tightened, rose sharply toward his touch, and Cullen groaned, bent farther to press his mouth wide and open against the fabric. His tongue rasped back and forth over her and Essa’s fingers clenched tight, nails digging into rough wood.

“I have been,” she reminded him breathlessly. “On my best behavior.”

His lips pulled back, hovered mercilessly, breath teasing the thin band of grey she hadn’t been without for more than a few minutes each day. Branson and Alma were welcoming hosts, but they were also—how had Rosalie put it?—woefully respectable. Only children were allowed to run about without shoes, and rarely encouraged. Adults were expected to wear proper attire at all times. Essa had been too afraid to sleep naked, and that was before Emmett snuck into their room the first night for stories and cuddles with Dire.  By the Mabari, she had been going mad. Though completely lacking in the subterfuge and malice that had made the Winter Palace so unbearable, staying with Cullen’s brother and sister-in-law had been even more restrictive. Here, she did not wish to hurt or offend, but she could be even less herself than in Halamshiral.

“You  _were_ ,” Cullen agreed, stressing the tense. “But something got into you today.”

He arched a brow in askance. When she didn’t answer, he rubbed his cheek over her breasts, a scratching taunt of stubble to linen, breath on her skin, but offering no further contact. Essa knew that the space between them was conditional. His hands on her hips held the greedy arch of her body from pressing fully to his, but it wouldn’t last.

Maker be praised.

“So what?” Essa glared up at him. “You’re punishing me?”

“I might be.” Cullen smiled, leaned in to feather kisses over her jaw. “Though I am more likely only reinforcing your behavior.”

She still didn’t know what he thought she had done—and by the Mabari, if this was some strange jealousy thing, they would have that talk sooner rather than later—but she was nearly starved for him. She was a weak enough woman to wait for whatever he had planned.  Cullen opened his mouth over her collarbone, and she moaned, straining futilely against his grip.  

“Be still,” he admonished, laughter gilding the command.

“I most certainly will not.” She reached up with one leg, hooked her knee at his hip and pulled him flush against her. For a moment they went impossibly still, breaths hitched, bodies clamoring toward one another. He was nearly as warm as she was and already hard.  Essa bit her lip, tried to remember how on earth she had kept her hands off of him for the past three days. “Now, what in Andraste’s name are you talking about?”

He thrust forward with his hips, and Essa rocked back toward him, the layers of cotton and silk between an unendurable frustration.

“At dinner!” Cullen finally exclaimed, as if she should have known. “And while my brother was telling me…well I don’t precisely remember what he was telling me. Something about market trends or caravan routes or…’

He scowled down at her and she grinned, saw the façade of anger was built upon exasperation and beautiful mischief.

“It doesn’t matter,” he decided, shaking his head in annoyance as he rubbed maddeningly against her. “You had your hand in my lap!”

“Oh!” Essa snorted. She gaped at him. _Oh_. “The shameful flirting was with you?!”

“Well, who else?” he demanded. “There hasn’t been anyone even half as interesting for three blighted days!”

Essa laughed. “No, there hasn’t.” She covered her hand with her mouth then mumbled from behind her fingers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean--”

“To call them dull?” He shoved her back hard enough to earn a grin from her, then reached for the waistband of her leggings. “There was a time you would have found me so as well.”

Together they wriggled her leggings down enough to free her lifted leg. Thunder rumbled low in the distance and Cullen caught her lips, swallowing Essa’s cry of pleasure as he shoved her smalls to one side and slipped two fingers into the wet heat of her. She thought he might have whispered something,  _I love you_  or some praise to the Maker, but Essa was so far past pretty phrases and patient touches, she would never be sure.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” she chanted against his mouth, hands and arms tangling between them as she reached for the laces of his trousers. She stroked him once, fingers clumsy with need and touch heavy as she freed him from the wet cotton. “Please, hurry.” 

There was no time for careful worship as much as she might want it, and later, she promised them both silently, she would do better by them. Cullen caught her beneath the ass, and she lifted up on the toes of one foot, guiding him roughly with hands and knee, heel against the back of his thigh, mewling, begging, whispering sighs against his neck. His shirt clung to her bare skin, and half of her leggings hung from her support leg, the dangling silk catching in the hay beneath her feet, but all that mattered was that he was finally--finally--inside of her.

“You were never so dull,” Essa chuckled, hands grasping at his shirt, rucking it up enough that the ridges of his abdomen rippled against hers with their every steady movement. “You just thought you were.”

Cullen grunted, set his teeth against her neck, braced her against the wall so that he could work one hand between them as he continued to thrust into her. Each advance was quick, deliberate, the retreat a slow torment that he knew left her boneless. His fingers brushed her clit and her head fell back, orgasm rising fast and bright, bursting like starlight behind her eyelids.

“But I have to admit,” she managed on a gasp. “The staid commander image really does it for me.”

She ran her hands down his spine, felt him shudder as she pulsed and trembled around him. His rhythm faltered, thrusts becoming harsh and erratic, but Cullen’s jaw was set, and she knew he had wanted to drag at least one more climax from her before he let go.

“And Maker’s breath,” she purred. “I do like riling him up.”

She stretched up, rubbing his chest with hers, lifting her chin to his shoulder and lips to his ear.

“Now,” she ordered, the edge of her plea dark as she played shamelessly on what she knew to be one of his favorite weaknesses. “Please. I want you at least once more before we have to sneak back inside.”

His thumb circled once then slipped, and Cullen turned his fingers, dragged the roughest of weapon-made calluses against her. He pressed his smirk against her neck as she came again, this time swearing, blunt nails biting into his back as he followed her over that shimmering fall.

 

 


	7. The Other Rutherford

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompted by the wonderful slothquisitor for “Cullen and Essa sometime after Acts with the Rutherford siblings, because you know how I am with Rutherford family feelings. And Branson wasn't in the epilogue!” 
> 
> Picking up from the last chapter. This one is SFW.

“You know that doesn’t matter to me.” Cullen pressed his lips against her shoulder, felt around in the dark for her tunic and balled it up, tucked it beneath his neck as Essa settled her head on his chest.

“I know.”

The night was warm, a crash of thunder and rain beyond the shelter of the barn. Essa drew in a breath, let out a sigh that was still too tight with nerves. He certainly didn’t mind her favorite coping mechanism, but Cullen wasn’t happy that sex had only sort of helped. She was too confined here, bound by status and titles, trappings largely eschewed at Skyhold, and utterly absent from Smoke’s Valley. Alma and Branson would be scandalized to hear that the Herald of Andraste preferred their barn to their finest guest room.

“I didn’t expect to be a celebrity.”

There was more she wasn’t saying and Cullen let the rest lie silent in the dark. Mia had not been unkind, nor would she ever say anything, but the quiet disappointment was there, a soft blue counterpoint to Alma’s shining excitement that the Herald had blessed their home.

“I know.” Cullen’s arms were tight around her, thumbs sweeping in arcs of worry below her navel. “I didn’t expect them to just be…people.”

For years his siblings had been both threat and promise. More idea than reality. A boy’s memories held close through the years, until they were less themselves and more the layers of nostalgia’s warm patina. After Kinloch and Kirkwall, he had worried about finding himself among them again, his past laid bare before the eyes of children, rather than the adults they had all grown to be. He had feared their judgment. More importantly, he had feared his own judgment of the man he had become seen through their eyes. He had never expected to be someone else entirely by the time he saw them again.

“You and Fin…” he huffed out a breath. “You make it look so easy. Ten years apart as if they’d never happened.”

Essa nodded, reached to catch one of his hands before he swept an abrasion across her skin. She laced their fingers together and hung on.

“We’re not people though.” She shrugged. “Not really. And ten years isn’t the same as twenty. When we found each other at Haven, we had only a decade to catch up on and we shared to excess, starved for one another.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder with a sigh. “It’s not like that for you and Mia and Branson. A bit for Rosie, but she’s the baby. She had the luxury of a childhood even after…”

Even after his parents were gone, and Mia’s husband not far behind them. Even after Branson and Mia dragged themselves from the grief of Honnleath to South Reach, built a life for themselves and Rosie. They had been lucky their father believed in saving. There had been enough to set up a shop, make something more of their father’s small shipping operation.

Essa’s summary tumbled to a halt. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He kissed her again, an absent brush of his lips across her temple this time. “You’re quite right. I know little of what they went through after our parents died, only what Mia wrote in her letters. She lost the most of course, and she carries that loss with more grace than I can imagine. It’s something of a miracle that Rosie is so much as I remember.”

“Some people don’t really change,” Essa offered. “I know Fin hasn’t, I don’t think he would say that I have. But it’s not fair to expect that of each other, so most people don’t. You didn’t think they would be the same did you?”

“No, but…” Cullen sighed. “I suppose it’s guilt.”

“No small amount of ego too,” she teased gently, turning her face into him to lick the salt from his skin. “If you think that your being here would have made Branson so much into someone else. He’s a good man for all his quiet, and Alma is clearly over the moons for him. For what it’s worth, I think they laugh a great deal more when vaunted religious figures aren’t around putting everyone on edge.”

He knew what she was thinking, and Cullen couldn’t help but marvel too. That he would be the match to Rosie in joy was a wonder that would never cease.

“I hope so,” he said, fingers tangling in her hair. “I’m sorry that they can’t see you for who you are.”

Cullen had never seen her so quiet, so stifled, but there was nothing for it. He had told her to be herself and damn the consequences. If his family didn’t like her, they would simply leave, but Essa was cautious with the hearts entrusted to her, and she was determined to give him time with his family.

“Mia does,” Essa’s laugh was rueful. “She doesn’t care what titles I have or whether I’m sent by Andraste or the Maker. She’s genuinely upset that I’m not going to fill a house with little Rutherfords for you. We’re too good with children. We’d have been better off if Mia had never seen us with Nadie and Hope or Robert and Emmett.”

Robert was Mia’s son. Just a year older than Hope, the boy idolized his uncle. Cullen wasn’t quite certain how he felt about the boy’s adoration. Emmett was easy. Branson’s oldest was only eight and took after his Aunt Rosalie, whom he loved with near worshipful abandon. He didn’t care one whit about his famous aunt and uncle, not until Essa let him ride Geri around the pasture without a saddle and bridle. Emmett didn’t care—no matter how many times his parents told him he should—about the Herald of Andraste, but Aunt Essa with the ponies and the puppies, and the bare feet as dirty as his? Oh, that was the one Emmett loved.

“It’s really none of her business,” Cullen interrupted his own thoughts hotly. He was still angry.

“It isn’t.” Essa turned in his arms, sprawled more fully across his chest now that she had cooled somewhat from their lovemaking. “But it’s what people do. You know how many offers of marriage have come to Josie for the Inquisitor, most of which expressing interest in securing an heir.”

She rolled her eyes. “The Orlesians are particularly good about including papers of lineage. As if bloodlines matter to a woman raised by lesser Marcher nobility and a mabari.”

‘You’re not a brood mare,” he snapped, the whole thing igniting his temper anew.

“Says the man who just had sex with me in a barn,” Essa snorted. “Twice. And then fell asleep in my stall.”

“That is not,” Cullen argued, scandalized. “ _Your_  stall.”

“Are you trying to make it better or worse?” she grinned. “Cause I might feel a little guilty having sex in someone  _else’s_  stall.”

“Horses,” he pointed out, wincing at the primness he could not keep from his voice. “Do not generally breed in a stable.”

He had read a great deal on horses since meeting Essa, learned a great deal more once she recruited Michel de Chevin for the valley.

“And  _we_.” He could feel her grin over his heart. “Were not breeding, we were having shameful sex for nothing more than our own pleasure. I bet it wasn’t even sanctioned by the Maker.”

“Would you stop saying that?” he hissed. “You’re making it tawdry.”

“’ _Tawdry’_?!” She was caught in her laughter now, could only lean against him helplessly as she gasped around guffaws. “Have you been possessed by my sister?”

“I most certainly have not.”

Essa giggled. “I haven’t seen you blush like that since you lost everything playing wicked grace.”

“You’re not even looking at me,” he retorted outraged. “And it’s dark. How do you know I’m blushing?”

“I can hear it in your voice.”

“I saw a light?” There was apology in Rosalie’s voice, but the sudden appearance of his sister still made Cullen squeak like an adolescent girl. Essa dissolved into fresh gales of laughter as he scrambled for their clothes. “I can go if you’d rather.”

“Don’t you dare.” Essa sat up, and Cullen caught her arm before she could light the lantern again. “I feel as if we’ve hardly seen you in days. Just give us a moment before your brother dies of embarrassment.”

“Alright.” The gladness in her voice warmed him, but it was just as possible that was his imminent demise by burning humiliation.

“You’re lying on your shirt,” Essa offered helpfully as Rosalie giggled from just beyond the stall door.

“No,” he replied in what he hoped was an even tone as he searched frantically in the dark. “That’s  _your_  shirt.”

Rosalie snorted.

There was nothing but hay, then suddenly Essa, a very warm, very wet, very not for touching in front of his baby sister, part of Essa. She gasped, startled.

“Maker’s breath, Es, I’m sorry. I—“

“By the Mabari,” Essa swore, taking pity on him. “Rosie, close your eyes so that I can give this poor man some light before he’s too mortified to ever face you again.”

His sister’s giggles turned into wheezing chortles. “They’re closed.”

“Do you swear?” Cullen demanded, slowly releasing Essa’s arm.

Rosalie giggled. “I’m not nine years old, Cullen. I can be trusted.”

“Ha! You said the same thing about being six,” he reminded her. “And seven, and eight.”

“Fine,” she sighed, laughing. “I swear unto the Maker that my eyes are closed and will remain so until you’ve properly covered your shame.”

“My--?” Cullen groaned. “There is nothing—“

He rubbed furiously at the back of his blushing neck. “Maker’s breath.”

Rosalie joined Essa in her paroxysm of laughter, and by the time Essa managed enough breath to light the lantern, she was collapsed at his feet, tears streaming down her face, trapped in her glee. The flame danced golden over her skin and Cullen attempted to glare down at her without smiling at the hay caught in her hair or the merriment in her eyes.

“Shirt,” she hiccupped, thrusting his tunic up to him.

Cullen yanked the shirt on over his head, checked to make sure Rosalie was indeed not looking before he offered a hand down to Essa. She was still only half undressed, and despite getting caught mostly naked in the barn by his sister, Cullen couldn’t help grinning.

“Rosie?” Essa asked, eyes narrowed thoughtfully as her laughter subsided. Cullen held her arm for balance as she shoved her bare leg back into her leggings.

“Yeah?”

“You didn’t know it was us in here, right?”

Rosalie huffed out another bright laugh. “I assure you, I would never have guessed you two were in here—“

“Don’t say it,” Cullen interrupted her shortly.

Essa swayed beneath a fresh wave of mirth and he had to help her into her tunic.

“Fair enough,” she grinned. “Then…who’s the picnic basket for?”

*

“Um….” Rosalie still had her back to them, but Essa watched with great interest as a blush crept over the back of her neck. She was wet through from the storm, but her golden curls were twisted up into a haste knot, and she was wearing…well not much more than Essa had skipped out of the house in.

“Who were you meeting, Rosie?” Cullen’s demand snapped into the night, the sharp edge of a general accustomed to being told whatever he wished to know immediately.

Essa covered her face with one hand, but it was too late. Rosalie spun to face them, amber eyes flashing with the same tawny fire that lay banked within her brother’s gaze. Her lips pressed into a thin line, cheeks high and nearly as red as Cullen’s. Silence stretched taut through the barn as the siblings glared at one another, all humor gone beyond what Essa bit back behind her quaking lips. Rain drummed on the rooftop, and the horses rustled quietly in their stalls. Cacique lifted his head in concern, hung his nose over his door sensing Cullen’s unease. Rosalie tapped one booted foot on the hard-packed floor, one hand on her hip as she gave her brother a chance to see his error.

“I’m sorry.” Cullen sighed, ran one hand through the nest of his hair. “Rosalie, I’m sorry. Truly, It’s none of my business. You’re a woman grown.”

But Essa knew she would always be a bit of the girl he had left when he joined the order.

“And you’ve as much right to the barn as we do,” Essa grinned. Slipping one arm through Cullen’s, and pressing her cheek to his bicep as much in reward as comfort. He was still learning how he fit in with his siblings. Rosalie was the easiest, but that didn’t mean he would put his foot in his mouth from time to time. “Maybe more,” she added.

“Though I don’t understand—“ Cullen frowned and Rosalie’s gaze flitted away guiltily.

Essa was pretty sure she knew the turn of his thoughts, hers weren’t usually far behind. Why wasn’t Rosie meeting her sweetheart at her own place? She hadn’t shared rooms with Mia for some time now. Once the inn began doing well enough, they’d added a suite above the stable for Rosie. She cared for the animals, both those that belonged to Mia and the inn as well as those of their guests. The arrangement worked well enough, and she had more privacy than Essa and Cullen had been forced to steal for themselves in the middle of the night.

“I think what your brother means…” Essa began suspiciously. “Is why run all the way across the pasture in the pouring down rain when…?”

The barn door opened before she could finish her question and Fin stepped inside.

“I thought I saw the light earlier,” he said, taking off his hat and slicking back his hair with a damp hand. “But it was gone just as quickly—“

He shrugged out of his coat, turned to hang it and his hat on a peg by the door. As if he were quite at home. Here. In Branson Rutherford’s barn.

“Fin Larkson!” Essa yelled.

He spun toward them with a comical jolt, as if Essa’s shout had been a fork of lightning. Fin’s blue eyes rounded wide as he stared down the aisle toward them.

“Rosalie!” Cullen gasped, voice high with shock.

“It’s not like that!” Rosie shouted, cheeks bright in the low light.

“It isn’t!” Fin agreed, staunchly. “Not all of us...”

He didn’t bother finishing his statement as he stalked through the barn to join them. He waved his hand to indicate Essa’s state of disarray.

“Don’t you have a bed?” he asked sharply.

“Isn’t that a stupid question?” Essa retorted just as quick.

It was and they all knew it, but Cullen answered anyway, an attempt, Essa knew, to salvage what pride he had left after being caught rolling in the hay like some overly-hormonal adolescent rather than  _a man grown. Commander of the Inquisition's forces._ Essa grinned. She could hear him ranting in her head.

“That bed,” he began indignantly. “Is currently filled with a one year old mabari who snores and one eight year old nephew, who talks about horses in his sleep. And it has been so occupied every night this week.”

“I’ve been sleeping on the floor,” Essa added.

“Maker’s breath,” Rosalie, said in sympathy. “You poor things. Does Alma know?”

She shook her head before they could answer. “Of course she doesn’t, Emmett would be doing extra chores for a month if she thought he was bothering you.”

“He isn’t,” Essa and Cullen said quickly together.

Rosie smiled. “That’s it. After Andrea’s dedication tomorrow, I will tell Branson and Alma that they have to share you. You can come stay at the inn for a few days. Robert will be beside himself, and he’ll no doubt demand your attention into the wee hours, Cullen, but at least he’ll let you sleep in your own bed.”

“Alone?” Cullen laughed.

“Alone,” Rosie confirmed.

“Thank you.” The relief in Cullen’s voice was palpable.

“Don’t thank me too soon,” Rosie said with a grimace. “Mia’s going to harass Essa about babies the whole time.”

“You could always tell her you’re working on it,” Fin smirked.

“Fin!” Essa smacked him on the arm.

“Practicing then?” he suggested instead.

Cullen turned assorted shades of crimson and Essa bit her lip to keep from laughing. She glowered at Fin in what she could only hope passed as some kind of solidarity.

“Can we talk about something—anything—else?” Cullen begged.

Rosalie laughed. “Come on,” she nodded toward the loft. “I have wine—“

“Do you now?” Essa raised a brow at Fin.

“And pastries,” Rosie continued as if she had never spoken. “And if you’re good, I’ll show you where I keep the actual blankets so you aren’t stuck using a saddle blanket next time.”

“Savages,” Fin muttered in teasing.

“Fin Larkson,” Essa retorted. “I will beat you.”

He laughed, caught her around the neck and pulled her close to ruffle her hair. “You and what army.”

“His,” Essa pointed imperiously at Cullen.

“No, you won’t,” Cullen said holding up his hands and stepping away. “I knew going into this I’d have to stay neutral. I’m not choosing sides between you and the stableboy. EVER.”

“Good man,” Fin nodded.

“That’s choosing sides!”

 


	8. The Herald of Andraste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> picking up after the last chapter. More of Cullen's reunion with this siblings in South Reach. Have some feelings. Lots of feelings.

“You look beautiful,” Cullen assured her as Essa smoothed the long fall of starched skirts. Alma had pressed the linen herself, determined that such honor of duty would not pass to any of the maids.

“I look ridiculous,” Essa returned without glancing away from her reflection.

The Rutherfords’ looking glass was as fine and clear as any at Skyhold and, just as those did, showed her a woman she did not quite know.

“This is so much worse than the gowns she chooses for Summerday. Andraste’s knickers, Cullen, you don’t think Josie is going to expect me to wear this thing all the time do you? It’s worse,” she added, finally meeting his eyes in the mirror. “Than the uniform.”

“It is,” he agreed, leaning in to kiss her and finding his path blocked by a wide swath of crimson linen. “Maker’s breath, I can’t get close enough to kiss you without wrinkling your skirt! Where did you have that thing packed?”

They’d made the journey to South Reach on horseback and Essa had no such room amid her bags for anything so grand as the crimson and white and gold monstrosity she was expected to wear to Cullen’s niece’s dedication.

“Mia brought it.” Essa sighed. “With a note from Josephine that anything I might have brought with me would not do for the Inquisitor’s first formal public appearance outside of Skyhold since peace was secured. “ She made a sound of distress. “Josie even had it made out of linen. I know she thought she was being sweet but…”

She lifted her skirts to show the layers of white beneath it. “There’s no point in linen if she’s going to Orlesian the thing up with all these stupid layers. My skin can’t breathe.”

Essa wasn’t quite being fair and she knew it. There were only about half as many layers as the full skirted gowns that were so favored in Orlais, but she was much more encumbered than she would have been in anything she owned, or even the fine gowns she had at home. The bodice of the dress was near enough to sleeveless, the long, draped sleeves split all the way to her shoulders and hanging against her sides, but the entire thing was too tight, her breasts emphasized as if they were somehow divine and in ardent need of worship. Not that anyone could have gotten to them with the remorsefully high neckline. The dress was…

“Just awful,” Rosalie said from the door.

“I know,” Essa sniffed.

“Well…at least…” Rosalie frowned, clever mind trying to find something positive to suggest. “No one can tell if you’re wearing shoes?”

“Oh!” She was right. Essa clapped her hands. “Rosie, I hadn’t even thought that far yet! I would kiss you, but I can’t reach you.”

She flung one hand out toward Cullen and he caught it, helped her balance as she used her toes to get out of the equally preposterous shoes Mia had brought. Essa sighed in relief, kicking the heels out from beneath her skirts with a bit more malice than she knew was strictly warranted. “Now if I can just get the damned stockings off.”

Cullen’s upper lip twitched toward something suspiciously like a grin.

“Should I leave you two alone?” Rosalie asked, smirking when Cullen blushed immediately.

“No.” He gestured her into the room with his chin. “But you can help. This will no doubt take all three of us.”

Essa and Rosalie giggled, and Essa couldn’t help but be proud that Cullen didn’t dignify their mischief with a response.

“Hold her skirts,” he said once Rosalie closed the door behind her. “Let’s see if we can at least get her somewhat comfortable.”

“Aren’t you going to roast in that uniform?” Rosie asked, catching the hem of Essa’s gown and lifting it enough for Cullen to all but crawl beneath it.

Essa stared down at the wide bell of her skirt, Cullen’s boots and rear sticking out. She was giggling too much to stand still even before he swatted her lightly for her misbehavior.

“Plate’s far worse,” he said, rather valiantly, Essa thought, ignoring her every laughing shimmy. “But this one…”

Essa jumped when his gloved hand touched her thigh.

“Doesn’t fight in much more than what you’re wearing.”

“Really?” Rosie’s eyes were wide with interest. She glanced down at her summer frock then back to Essa.

“Really.” Essa confirmed, biting back a gasp. Cullen’s fingers were at her garters and she suddenly realized that his consideration for her comfort was a Very Bad Plan. “Especially in the summer.”

“I’m sorry.” His apology was muffled beneath her skirt, breath cool on her bare skin as he finally slid the silk down her leg.

Rosalie snickered. “I didn’t think you blushed, Essa!”

“Really?” Cullen asked, pecking a kiss to the inside of her knee as he moved  to her other leg. “I hate that I’m missing this.”

“You’re missing nothing,” Essa hissed, kicking him lightly with one now blessedly bare foot. “I will remind you.” She poked his head through the layers of skirt. “That your sister is out here with me.”

Cullen chuckled, placed a teasing kiss just a bit higher than the last. Essa squealed and Rosalie’s tawny gaze spun bright with merriment in the late morning light.

“I prayed for you,” she said suddenly.

Beneath Essa’s skirts, Cullen went still, breath held, lips still lingering on her skin.

“For…?” Essa asked, because he couldn’t. Because she could feel the weight of his worries as closely as any she might ever carry of her own.

“For both of you,” Rosalie continued, staring past Essa, eyes distant upon the looming day. “Though I didn’t know I was praying for you, Essa.”

She swallowed, hands careful on the wide hem of Essa’s skirt, and for a moment she chewed on her lip, breath rising and falling with too much unsaid as Cullen’s lungs clamored for her words and his own air.

“I’m not really…a chantry goer,” Rosalie shrugged. “Mia thinks I lost my faith after the Blight, but really, I find the Maker elsewhere. I don’t believe he’s turned his face from us.”

“No,” Essa whispered. “I don’t believe he has either, though if he has, one day I imagine he and I will have words.”

Cullen’s lips trembled against her leg, laughter and something more. Essa dropped her hand to Cullen’s head, heedless of her skirt, fingers brushing in comfort and presence.

“I’m not very good at praying.” Rosalie glanced back as if she expected judgment from them, as if she were used to taking such differing opinions on the chin. It was a look Essa knew well, having seen it so often in herself. She met Rosie’s courageous stare with her on, then offered her other hand.

“Oh,” Rosie whispered, slipping her fingers into Essa’s. “I didn’t think…”

Essa smiled. “I know.” She gave her fingers a squeeze of encouragement.

“Even so,” Rosalie cleared her throat, her gaze stumbling away again. There was so much, Essa realized as Rosalie rallied her thoughts, that she and her brother shared. “I prayed for you, Cullen. Every single day that you were away. Prayed that the templars wouldn’t steal your laughter.”

He made some nonsensical sound beneath Essa’s dress. Something that might have been negation, not that either Essa or Rosalie believed him.

“I know you thought yourself so grown up,” Rosie continued. “And I dare say I annoyed you more often than I knew, but do you remember how you used to laugh?”

Essa bit her lip hard enough that she tasted blood, knew she would have to use some of the cosmetics Alma had given her to cover the small wound, but nothing would stop the slow slide of her tears down her cheeks as Rosie opened a twenty year old wound to finally begin its mending.

“I do,” Cullen murmured the rough confession against Essa’s knee.

“I do too,” Rosalie said. “And I prayed you wouldn’t lose it. Branson and Mia…they did. First with Mum and Da, and then with Rob. When I heard about everything that happened to you…I can’t tell you…”

She blinked back tears, shook them away with a little laugh and then let them fall.

“I just—“ she took a breath, let it out on a shuddering sob. “It’s good. It’s so damn good to hear you laugh.”

Rosalie met Essa’s tear-filled stare. “And I know it’s so much because of you.” She clung to Essa’s hand, then let go of her skirt so that she could hold onto her with both of hers. “Thank you.”

Essa could only nod, struck mute by Rosalie’s open sincerity, by the reverent grip of Cullen’s hands clasped like prayers around her calf.

“You’re welcome,” she finally managed around the love that threatened to choke her.

“I just,” Rosalie nodded once, hard. “I just wanted you both to know.”

She glanced back down at Essa’s gown, draped over her kneeling brother and the hallowed moment spun golden and joyful.

“Oh!” Rosalie clapped one hand over her mouth. “Oh! I’m sorry.”

She made a grab for Essa’s skirt hem, attempted—and mostly succeeded—to right them all.

“It’s not too mussed is it?” she asked, glancing skittering over the gown, the spread of linen over Cullen’s bowed head.

“I don’t care if it is,” Essa retorted, voice wavering with laughter and tears. She stood, one hand clutching Rosalie’s, the other on the back of Cullen’s head through who knew how many layers of linen, and while she might laugh at the picture later, right now she could only feel as if she had somehow stumbled into peace in South Reach. She could only pray, no more fit to it than Rosie believed herself, that Cullen had too.

“Now your brother had better get out here and hug you,” Essa declared. “Or I’m going to have to do it and then all these acrobatics will have been for naught with my stupid dress.”

Rosalie laughed, lifting Essa’s skirt high enough that Cullen could scoot out. He placed a gentle kiss above Essa’s knee, and just before he rose to sweep his sister in his arms, Essa heard him whisper  _thank you._

*

By midafternoon, Essa had all but forgotten the dress. She stood at the back of the Chantry, Andrea snuggled into the crook of one arm, Emmett clinging to her now wrinkled skirts, a genuine smile on her face as she shook hands and kissed the heads of other babies offered for her blessing. If anyone thought her unorthodox blessing-- _Grow fierce and true, bright one—_ even a little amiss, Cullen could not find disappointment in their faces.

“One of us should go rescue her,” Mia said, stepping up beside him.

Her hands were light on his arm, as if she waited for her touch to be welcomed. Cullen relaxed his stance to something that might resemble parade rest, canted his elbow out in accommodation. The smile the flitted her across her lips was hesitant, but real. Mia squeezed his bicep once in affection before looping her arm through his companionably enough.

“She’s not one for needing rescue,” Cullen replied with a smile.

“I think we both know that’s not entirely true,” Mia surprised him. “She needs you too.”

Essa glanced across the chantry yard, eyes shading from slate to silver when they lit upon him. Her lips curled up, brows wagging as she lifted Andrea just a little toward him in jest. Cullen hid a smirk.

“It’s a shame is all,” Mia said, rightly interpreting Essa’s teasing. “You would be good parents.”

“Somedays,” Cullen agreed. He stepped to the side, tugging her gently with him. “Will you walk with me, Mia?”

“Of course.” She patted his arm. “Just let me tell Robert to bring everyone along to the house soon. If we don’t, I’m afraid the Herald might be stuck as she is for the rest of the day, and eventually Alma will want Andrea out of this sun.”

Cullen smiled. “I’ll wait here.”

He watched as Mia moved toward the rest of their family. Essa was right, she did carry herself a bit like Cari, sure steps, quiet strength, not that Cari had known it. Mia Rutherford Lachland was not so uncertain.  She couldn’t afford to be, a blight widow with an infant, their parents had died a year before her husband and she and Branson had moved them all to South Reach amid the turmoil and grief. She was, he thought, very like their grandmother, kind and beautiful with long curls of princess gold and their mother’s muddy green eyes, but if Mia was a princess, she was the royalty of warriors.

“Alma!” Mia called, pulling their sister-in-law’s attention from the whirl of the day.

She had a strong clear voice that maturity seemed to have taught her did not need to be used on every disagreeable occasion. A rather frightening development, Cullen found, as they had all known when to expect a tongue lashing from their oldest sister. Her silences were somehow more intimidating, but when she raised her voice, as she did now, it did not go unnoticed.

He had heard the same said of him and the idea of Mia staring down his troops amused Cullen more than it probably should have.

Alma’s smile answered first, all the more stunning for its rarity as she turned toward Mia’s call. She was the image maternal pride. Her round face was still pale from what had been a difficult pregnancy, but she all but glowing today, standing a little apart from the crowd as she watched the Herald with her children.  Occasionally, she would dab delicately at her hazel eyes with a lace handkerchief, and Branson--looking so like their father that Cullen’s chest ached--would squeeze her hand, sherry brown eyes only for his bride.

His brother had thanked Cullen gruffly when they arrived at the chantry that morning. Alma, he said, hadn’t looked so happy since their wedding day. 

_Alright?_ Essa mouthed the words over a respectfully bowed head, and Cullen nodded, made the talking motion with one hand and pointed subtly to his sister as Mia made her way back toward him. Essa nodded, blew him a kiss of encouragement, and didn’t seem the least concerned when her actions drew tittering stares. Cullen blew her one back just to annoy Fin and set Rosie to laughing beside him.

“There,” Mia said, returning to his side and settling her wide-brimmed hat upon her head. “They’ll be along in half an hour. Long enough for us to talk and you to help me begin setting out the drinks.”

Cullen offered her his arm and she took it more easily than any time before.

“I imagine we can handle that,” he agreed.

There was to be a large gathering at  _the Hawk and Hound_. Mia had been hard at work for two days, and most of the Rutherfords along with her, preparing food for what seemed all of South Reach. Andrea’s dedication was more than just a family ceremony given their auspicious guest. If Essa was gracious enough to shake hands and kiss babies, Mia explained, then she could do no less than to feed their well-wishers.

“You said ‘somedays’,” Mia reminded him as they made their way down the main thoroughfare. Shops lined the street, flowers growing in profusion from window boxes and containers. The summer had been kind to Ferelden. Mia’s heels tapped quietly on the wooden walk.

“I did.” He wet his lips, tried to figure out exactly what to say.

“It’s always ‘somedays’ for parents,” she pointed out gently. “Believe me. We don’t always like our git. Somedays they drive us half mad with frustration.”

“It’s different.” Cullen stopped himself from reaching to rub the back of his neck. “I don’t know how much you understood from my letters, Mia, but lyrium…breaking those chains…Essa and I will have a happy home, but do not mistake it for the sort of place a child might thrive. There are nightmares, things from both our pasts that are as alive some nights as we are.”

He stared ahead into the hazing afternoon light, uncertain of how much he could tell her, never certain what was enough.

“But if you want them…” Mia began. “I cannot imagine that the two of you…”

“That’s just it.” Cullen smiled gently. “We don’t. It isn’t that children aren’t wonderful, Mia. We plan on loving so many, and we already do, but I want  _her_. I want to wake up to the silence of her, the calm and quiet before the storm of laughter. I want to reach through the worst of my nights and find her waiting. I want to be there for the worst of hers. There’s violence in both of us, but as Cole says, we help.”

She glanced away from him, eyes searching the horizon, clever and quick and misting.

“Are you happy?” she asked thickly.

“You know that I am.”

She sighed. “When I lost Rob…Robert saved me. Having him, seeing so much of his father in him as he grew. He was my strength. You are both warriors…”

Cullen smiled, lifted her hand to his lips and bussed a kiss to her knuckles. Mia scowled at him through her tears.

“We are,” he agreed. “But there’s Hope and Cari, if I ever found myself in danger of forgetting her face.”

“You wouldn’t,” Mia whispered.

“No.” Even with the very real possibility of all that he might have lost to lyrium, Cullen did not believe he would forget Essa. “I wouldn’t. And trust me. If the Maker calls Essa home before me, she’ll linger.”

He smiled at her, held her gaze until she saw the truth in his. Slowly, Mia smiled in return, and for all that she looked like their grandmother, it was his father’s smile that lit her face, bright and sudden, crooked on soaring edges.

He didn’t mention the dead husband or the mother mabari who were just as likely to be waiting with Essa.

“She would,” Mia agreed softly. “And if that day ever comes, you will have us.”

Cullen could only nod.

“And Sera,” she added. “I’m still not certain how we were denied her presence on this trip.”

The lump in Cullen’s throat dissolved into laughter. 

“She’s in Jader.” His breath exploded, decades of wondering cast like foam to fade upon the Waking Sea. “She mentioned something about honey and silk and snarled at me for not warning her to bring a wedding gift.”

Mia’s laughter surprised him. It rang out, rich and deep, a dark effervescence.

“You’ll regret that, won’t you?” she teased.

“Oh,” Cullen gasped through his smile. “You have no idea.”

 


	9. Hearth and Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post Inquisition. Cullen x Essa.  Fluff. Prompted by a talk with velynven about new normals and how not all coping behaviors (essa sleeping outside for instance) are ones that can or need to be grown past.

The night was soft as Cullen made his way outside, a blue-black dripping with the cold fire of countless stars. In the distance an owl called gentle wonderings. It wasn’t cold yet, not that Essa would notice when it was, but he had a particular fondness for the clinging end of summer. So many good memories tangled beneath that slant of the sun. When winter came, he would more often leave her to her wandering, but tonight was one for sharing. 

He pulled his blanket more closely around his shoulders, clomping to the barn with unlaced boots and a louder tread than he ever needed so that he wouldn’t sneak up on any of the animals. Or Essa. Dire paced faithfully beside him, tongue lolling happily. The mabari hadn’t woken him when she left their bed, which meant it hadn’t been a nightmare that woke her. He couldn’t say the same, but tonight’s had been mild enough and he knew where comfort waited.

Geri whickered softly from the paddock as Cullen neared the barn. Cacique was a bit louder in his greeting as he passed the warhorse’s stall and Cullen reached out to scratch a chin no less arrogant for two years of retirement. He passed a pair of empty stalls—most of the horses were still in Smoke’s valley for the summer—and found Essa curled up in the largest. Folly had foaled a week ago, her first and utterly unplanned. Essa and Michel had been furious but mother and foal were fine. A palomino paint with Cacique’s shrewd gaze in a delicate face. Cullen wasn’t surprised to find the mare lying in the thick bedding, Faith and Essa tucked against her side. Ser Mittens was curled up on Essa’s hip and the orange tabby opened both eyes, glaring through the moonlight and a waking yawn as Cullen quietly opened the door.

Folly snorted quietly in welcome as he closed the stall door behind him. Essa nor the foal stirred. Both as safe and content as any two creatures in all of Thedas and Cullen smiled thanking Folly for her watch with a gentle rub to her ears. He gave her his palm and she lipped at him once in as he settled down into the hay near her head, leaning back against the wall, Dire on his other side.

This was home, he marveled, not for the first time in the years since Essa defeated Corypheus and claimed peace for them both. He knew it wouldn’t be the last. His half-feral wife was domesticated now, or so she often claimed with a broad grin. Cullen supposed if the horses would be so considered then so would she. She was happy here in the house rebuilt upon the memories of his family’s home. Only the chimney had been left standing, but a hearth was home, she had told him and they had built theirs around it--was still building around it. If the house was a bit larger and grander than the one from his childhood, Cullen could not fault the excess. There was always welcome and room for any in need or for long visits from the hearts still and forever bound to hers.

Home, he thought again, offering up a prayer of thanksgiving.

_And the stars stood still, the winds did quiet, and all animals of earth and air held their breath and all was silent in prayer and thanks._

Folly’s head lowered and she dropped back into the light, vigilant sleep known to both parents and warriors. Cullen stayed awake a few moments more, memorizing a scene no less powerful for its familiarity.  Ser Mittens hopped down, padded over to snuggle close to Dire, and Cullen followed Folly into dreamless rest.

 


	10. Ser Mittens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen's cat is a nearly as much of a menace as his wife. About six month post-trespasser.

“Pray for me,” Essa said, without glancing down. She was currently standing on a tall, three-legged stool, arm braced against the stone wall for support, a look of profound trepidation beneath the lines of concentration on her face. “She’s been in there all morning.”

“I don’t understand how she made it up there in the first place,” Fin griped, one hand clutching the back waistband of her leggings. “You know that he’s going to kill us.”

“He will just have to get over it,” she said, dropping her voice to what she felt was a reasonable impersonation of her husband. “’That can wait for spring, Es. We’ll pull the whole thing down, put the storeroom to rights.’ A floor first would be nice, Rutherford.”

The outbuilding was on the farthest perimeter of what Essa looked at as their “yard,” and was the last of Essa’s restoration projects. Nearly the size of the barn, it was still mostly in ruins. Two stories, with enough walls and roof for storing hay and grain, but not much else until the second floor was repaired. Sometime in the mysteries of its past, the door to the upstairs storeroom had been walled in, and sometime more recently several of those stones had fallen out, leaving a face-sized hole just waiting to cause trouble.

“But that can wait until spring too,” Essa continued in her approximations of Cullen’s voice.

Fin laughed, but she cut him off, shouting in annoyance as she stared into the shadows.

“And what did I say?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I said. We need to see what’s in there, Cullen. Can’t go leaving holes in walls, Cullen. Especially ones with suspicious patch jobs. There could be bodies in there for all we know!”

Fin let her rant. It wasn’t the first one in the week since Cullen had ridden to Clifton to meet with Barris and Cassandra for their annual—and informal—summit. Ordinarily Essa would have gone with him, but she had a mare about to foal so she’d had to stay behind.

“Careful,” Fin urged, steadying her when the stool wobbled from her wild gesticulations.

“I’m more worried about his beloved taking my hand off,” Essa groused. “You know…the only one I have left.”

“Still not funny,” he reminded her, giving her a sharp shake for her trouble.

“You’re going to have to get over it sooner or later,” she sighed. “Both of you.”

“It hasn’t been long enough for sooner or later,” Fin argued. “But I can’t tell you how to feel.”

“No,” Essa agreed, finally working up the nerve to reach between the stones. She felt around in the dark, completely missing the trap she had talked her way into. “You can’t.”

“Then you don’t get to tell us how to feel either,” he declared triumphantly.

She found nothing, just a dirty wooden floor. She supposed she should be grateful, all things considered.

“I hate you,” she gritted, kicking back with one foot and nearly losing her precarious stance.

“Because I’m right,” Fin said, leading with his voice.

“Because you’re right,” she sang in a promise of retribution.

“That goes on record.”

Essa spun toward Cullen’s voice, scowl warring with her the sudden flight of her smile. Fin was quick enough to let go of her and Cullen—who had surely been blessed by the Maker with unnatural reflexes—managed to catch her as she dove for him.

She landed soundly in his arms, hand tangling in the curls at the back of his head. “We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow,” she accused between kisses.

“I could see that.” But the reprimand went unspoken, words lost between their lips’ reunion.

“And…that sappy look in both your eyes is my signal to leave,” Fin said, dusting off his hands and heading for the door. “You two have fun getting the cat out of the haunted storeroom.”

“The—What?!” Cullen pulled away from, glared down at his laughing wife. “What have you done with Ser Mittens?”

“What have I…?” She shook her head. “I haven’t done anything to your damn cat. Ser Mittens.” Essa pointed imperiously to the hole above their heads.  “Is in there, and she is probably having kittens.”


	11. Of Honey Bees and Apple Blossoms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wonderful knight-enchanted asked for a prompt with Sera, Cullen, anniversaries, and reunions. I hope I managed the right balance of fluff and “where are they now”. This falls five years after Acts of Reclamation (which is five years after the end of Inquisition, two years after trespasser).

_Champion’s Rest,_  as everyone called Cullen and Essa’s home when neither was in earshot to take umbrage, was more than a single home. The main house—recently and finally finished only after the barn, the stable, the chapel, and Fin’s cottage—was a rambling stone structure of limestone and quartz that shimmered in the sun not unlike Clifton’s chantry. Windows shone in near excess, some clear as water, others stained with images of Andraste and her mabari. Sera thought it fitting that Cullen would live in a chantry, but for all that the outside looked like a holy place, the inside bore a striking resemblance to a well laid out tavern.

The ground floor—which Sera thought would have been murder to heat without a fire mage in residence—was large and mostly open around the central hearth. Half the house was given to the great room, where wide tables and long benches crowded the perimeter walls, enough room for all their company and then some. Not that so many had managed to gather since Essa disbanded the Inquisition, but they were all—finally—nearly there.

Cozy chairs were grouped closer to the hearth. One was even big enough for Bull. He was tipped back in it now, Essa perched on one wide chair arm, feet across his lap. They had been laughing earlier, but now her eyes were darker than his grey skin and she was chewing on her lip. They hadn’t seen each other since the Exalted Council. Past time, Sera thought.

“He understands in ways I can’t,” Cullen said, tread so light Sera cursed him as he stepped out of the small office he and Essa shared. It was tucked into one corner of the main floor, more windows than walls, and filled with books. Sera had slipped a wedge of parchment under one leg of their desk just that morning for old time’s sake. She, Dagna, and Cole had a pool going on how long it would take them to notice.

“What’s that?” Sera asked, knowing, but also knowing Cullen needed to say it.

“About a loss not regretted.” He touched his left eye lightly, then his left arm, nodded back to Essa and Bull.

“Worth it,” Sera said in a reasonable approximation of Essa. “They both say it, don’t they? Mealy stare just darin’ you to say it wasn’t.”

Cullen’s laugh was a surprise to both of them and she grinned.

“Yes.” He reached up to rub the back of his neck with one hand. “Exactly.”

The great room was a field of pale-stained wood and firelight, laughter a somewhat brighter glow. The Chargers had settled in at one of the tables. Not everyone of course. Time and distance wore on, but Dalish, Rocky, and Grim spent most of their time in Ferelden, and it hadn’t been too hard for them to make it in for the holiday. Krem and Cari had come from Jader, having spent the last year in Kirkwall tending Essa’s estate. Sera watched Krem drop a kiss on Cari’s cheek as he passed her a deck of cards. Her graceful hands made a dance of dealing. Even in her fine dress, she was as much a Charger as any of them. Prin and Erik were among them. They fit as if they had always been.

Essa had her band of mercenaries. Funny, Sera thought, how life turned and turned.

“It was though,” she shrugged. “Worth it I mean. Your wife—“

She broke off giggling. “Still not used to that.”

“It’s been five years!” Cullen exclaimed, affronted.

“I know,” she snickered. “Still, didn’t think you’d ever get up the nerve.”

“You have one too, you know,” he pointed out drolly. “And it took a bottle of very expensive single malt for  _you_  to ‘get up the nerve’.”

“It did.” Sera’s frown was brief. “Hard to trust when you want something so bad.”

“Yes,” Cullen said, slipping one arm around her shoulders and dragging her close. He tucked her head over his heart. “Yes, it is.”

“We got family now, Jackboot.” Her voice was soft with wonder.

“And you’re making a respectable living and everything.”

“Arrows,” Sera threatened.

Cullen ruffled her hair until she shrieked.

*

It had only taken a few years for Honnleath Honey to become prized across Ferelden and once Anora and Alistair served it with apples and cheese at some function to honor the Herald, they found they could name any exorbitant price and still be sold out within a week of harvest. A combination of apple and blackberry blossom, the color was dark, the flavors exceptional. Sera was, of course, adept at working with bees and took no small pleasure in both giving the honey away to those who couldn’t afford the treat and extorting pretentious arses to more than cover the cost. Cullen waited until she and Essa pulled in their second year’s profits to break it to Red Jenny that she had stumbled into an honest enterprise. He found pictures of angry bees in his desk drawer for months after that, over crude drawings of himself stung nearly unrecognizable.

_Lucky, Jackboot. Es says I can’t stress the real ones or this’d be you._

There were arrows too. Cullen might have believed her if she had left them off.

“Do you miss that first spring here?”  Essa asked as they stole quietly away from the house in the soft hours of the morning.

The house and grounds were filled to bursting. Cullen’s family had arrived the night before Summerday, a tumble of golden haired Rutherfords, Alma’s dark coif the only break in sea of golden curls. The South Reach Ruthefords totaled six now: Mia, Robert, Branson, Emmett, Andrea, and baby Ester—an honor, there, that Essa was less comfortable with than Fin and Rosalie’s Donya. Of course the Larksons were part of the Honnleath Rutherford clan now. Fin and Essa would never be parted by distance for long and Rosie had been too happy to move back to her childhood home. It still surprised Cullen how alike they were. 

“You mean the one we spent in Redcliffe hiding from the rains?” he asked. “Or the one we spent by the lake trying to pitch our tent on the dock so that we weren’t knee deep in muck?”

Essa laughed, clapped her hand over her mouth quickly as if she feared being caught sneaking out of their own yard. Those were, of course, the same spring.

“I mean the one where we started on the house, when we had nothing but a set of plans nailed to your mother’s hearth and a ruined stable that Geri and Cacique were kind enough to share with us.”

“Sometimes.” Cullen grinned. “I like having you all to myself, you know.”

“Same.” She spun in a circle, lifted her face to him for a kiss. “But we’d be insufferable grouches left to our own perpetually.”

She held out her arms to embrace the land that rolled gently toward the Frostbacks, turned back to the lane with a fiercely proud smile. The avenue was wide enough for a royal coach, and lined with apple trees, berry bushes, a dozen pink flowering cherry trees scattered in among the orchard.  Essa had them shipped from the Marches—a ridiculous expense that Varric had been too happy to foot—only to discover that the trees were, in fact, ornamental. She had sulked for a week, grumbling through the planting of every sapling. Still, they bloomed faithfully to herald the start of every spring, and gave ground graciously before the profusion of white apple blossoms. The air was sweet above the berry vines and already the bees were buzzing through the morning, flitting from tree to tree and doing the Maker’s work.

“And we’ve built something lovely here, don’t you think?”

“I do.”

She had surprised him with the blueprints. A home built upon the foundation of his childhood. His family had lost the house in the Blight, and when he first brought her to the lake, there had been nothing left but a large central chimney and a crumbling hearth.  Essa had been determined to build there, and Cullen could only be thankful she didn’t need the words of gratitude he could never find to give her.

“We should have a good crop of apples this year.” Essa plucked a blossom from a low limb as they passed. “To say nothing of the honey.”

She tucked the flower above her ear and the white petals picked up strands of silver in her dark hair, cast them bright amid ruddy sun streaks. She wore it short again, a dark smooth fall that she rarely had to brush, but which provided her little trouble when she did. Sera had braided ribbons in at her temples the night before, canary and cobalt silk.

“Cullen?”

“Yes, darling?”

Her eyes went soft and smokey at the endearment. “Tell me again why we decided to have Summerday here instead of the valley?”

There were yet more guests to arrive. So many that Cullen had given up on keeping track. Still, it was a fitting dedication for a home finally finished. Vivienne had sent her regrets--and Cullen believed them--Essa smiled every time she saw the great marble sculptures she had sent in her stead. They flanked the gate that never closed, a knight enchanter who bore only a passing resemblance to Essa, and a shielded warrior too easily mistaken for certain former templar.

 _Guard the Guardians, dear heart._ Vivienne’s note had said.  _Maker bless you both._

Cullen reached for Essa’s hand as they passed them. She still teared up a bit each time. At the end of the long, winding dirt lane, the horizon was mist and magic, sunrise casting the world in a hallowed glow. Beneath his feet, the dark clay was packed into something nearly as hard and smooth as a proper road. Five years of wagon wheels and the ambling tread of hooves.

“Because this is home.”

“It is,” she agreed, bare feet a whispering tread as birds lifted their voices toward the dawn.

“And because it’s our anniversary,” he murmured, stopping beneath the dewy arms of an apple tree. “Five years, Mrs. Rutherford.”

Cullen held one hand out and Essa tangled her fingers with his. He pulled her close, kissed her slow and sweet and unhurried, knowing it was likely to be after midnight—or later—before he got the chance again.

She grinned against his lips. “It’s  _Summerday_ ,” she stressed, eyes sparkling with merriment. “It’s  _everyone’s_  anniversary.”

“Not everyone’s,” he contradicted. “Sera and Dagna…”

“Ours,” Essa interrupted to tick off on her thumb. “Alma and Branson.” She held up her index finger then folded it down. “Prin and Erik.” Middle finger. “Krem and Cari.” Ring finger. “Fin and Rosalie.”

That last was something she was still getting used to. She closed her hand into a fist and waved it at him. “And tomorrow, Nadie and Justin. I’m going to need your hand!”

Cullen bent to nuzzle her jaw. “You have both of them,” he reminded her, placing a warm, not quite chaste kiss below her ear. “Or have I been remiss in my demonstrations?”

His hands skimmed down her sides and Essa sighed, leaning more fully against the tree as she pulled him down into the warm, deep quiet of them.

“Oi! My eyes!” Sera’s shriek sent the birds fleeing, a flurry of wings and indignant calls, none more shrill than her own displeasure. “Don’t you two have a barn for that?”

“And a bedroom.” Essa grinned not looking up. “And perfectly good kitchen counters that I believe you’ve been making cookies on all night.”

Cullen groaned, forehead bumping Essa’s and cheeks flushing as Sera fell theatrically to the ground,  arms flailing, feet kicking as she rolled about in paroxysms of disgust at Dagna’s feet.

“Nice,” Essa said, drily, stepping away from Cullen to feign a kick toward Sera. “You’re going to get blackberry stains on your tunic if you keep that up.”

“Not to mention the rest of the dirt,” Cullen added. He offered Sera a hand, which she took, bouncing to her feet with a rakish grin.

“We’re going swimming later this morning anyway,” she shrugged. “You too, Cully-Wully. Rosie says we have to get all of the most uncivilized behavior out of the way while Mia, Ola, and Alma are too busy to yell at us.”

There was already a ban on the main house’s kitchen. Sera and Dagna had been allowed to make their cookies, but now no one except the bride’s mother and her chosen were allowed in until after the wedding.

“They’re going to feed us today aren’t they?” He and Essa might have been sneaking out to find some quiet, but that didn’t mean he was completely content to be cast out of his own home.

“Fin and Rosie are roasting a pig.” Essa assured him. “I promised to keep the kids out of the house for the day and Fin took pity on me. Cari too. She’’s staying behind to make sure Ola, Mia, and Alma don’t do anything I might have to yell at them for.”

Sera snickered. There had not been many disagreements between Essa and Cullen’s family, but the Satinalia that Mia tried to kick the dogs out because of muddy paws or some such was a bit of a family legend.

“Krem is taking the cookies over to the cottage now,” Dagna offered.”Along with some bread. Rosie’s making sweet cream to go with the berries they’ll want to pick.”

“Thank you, Dagna.”

It had surprised no one how well she and Cullen got on. Dagna was considerate of others and valued information and explanation, which too often Cullen found he needed. She was the perfect balance for Sera.

“Bull’s supposed to be bringing the ale,” Dagna continued. “Nothing stronger.”

Sera snickered. “Fin’s still mad about the time me and Es drank his best whiskey.”

“That—“ Essa said interrupting the breath Cullen had taken in order to admonish them—again…two years later. “Was not our finest moment and you know it.”

“There also weren’t kidlets around,” Sera snorted. “Got my courage up din’t it?”

“Yes,” Cullen agreed in a deliberately neutral tone that had Essa smirking. “And I’m certain that Dagna will remember your addled proposal fondly for the rest of your lives.”

“You know it.” Sera bumped Dagna’s side with her hip. “Least we didn’t get married on Summerday.”

“There is that.”Cullen exchanged a grin with Essa.

“Now,” he nodded toward the soft rise of sun. “What are you two doing still up?”

There was no way Sera had gone to sleep and awoken—willingly—so early.

“We have a housewarming for you.”

Sera’s laughter fled before disconcerting solemnity. Her gaze was as light as her fingers but hesitant as she stepped to Dagna’s side, and reached behind her wife to retrieve a largish parcel wrapped in heavy burlap.

“But I don’t wanna be here when you open it, got it?”

Sera pushed the package into Cullen’s hands, chin jutting forward in familiar stubbornness.

“She’s worried Essa will cry,” Dagna explained over her shoulder. Sera was already dragging her back toward the house. “The post is at the head of the lane!”

“The post?” Cullen glanced from Sera to the gift and then to Essa.

“Just open it!”

Essa shrugged. “She’s your crazy elf.”

“Both of yours!” Sera shouted back. “Widdle’s too!”

“Both of ours,” Essa agreed, blowing kisses at the retreating pair. She exchanged a broad grin with Dagna. “Dagna’s too.”

*

“Well,” Essa said, rising slowly to her feet. “Look at that.”

She dusted her hand off on the leg of her trousers, stared down at the dirt mounded around the heavy post of the neat metal sign. It hadn’t needed it of course, but she had still packed it down. Hands shaking with reverence as if she planted something precious and living. Her tears fell like soft rain and Cullen knew this too would grow. 

They had been debating one for years, but of a dozen different names for the lakeside retreat Essa and Cullen had been unable to come up with one that didn’t  sounded like a tavern—Essa didn’t think she would ever top  _The Mabari’s Den_  in Smoke’s Valley—or the recovered village of Haven. They had put it off too long to suit Sera apparently.

She and Dagna had chosen for them and they had settled on a shield.

The kite shield that Essa had bought Cullen six years before from Gal in Redcliffe had not been traded properly for ploughshares in their retirement.  It hung over their fireplace with a pair of long swords, all three low enough for easy retrieval, but not so high that an Inquisition banner couldn’t hang above it. They would never truly leave those years behind, and in spite of everything—perhaps  _because_ of everything—the reminder of the lives they had saved and changed for the better was not a bad one. The familiar emblems often helped ease the hearts of those who still sought their aid from time to time.

“It’s well done, don’t you think?” Cullen asked.

The signpost for the estate was that shield writ small. Gal had made subtle changes to the mabari once he realized exactly who had bought his work so many years ago. The mabari was no longer black, but brindle—like Dire, like Essa’s childhood mabari—and her war paint was as blue as the magefire that surrounded her on the triumphant battlefield. The armored collar was reminiscent of dragon spikes, a small nod to the armor Essa had worn against Corypheus. And though the mabari’s teeth were bared fiercely, her eyes were grey now and kind.

“Yes.” Essa ran her fingers over the mabari’s face. “I think it is.”

Gal had worked the sign in silverite rather than steel, light enough not to stress the post and fine enough to hold enchantments against wear. Dagna had inlaid a handful of runes into the back to preserve the work, and so that the shield would glow at night. Not quite as brightly as the lamps in Val Royeaux, but a beacon nonetheless.

“Dagna’s asked to build at the old quarry,” she said suddenly. “Something half in the mountain.”

Cullen nodded. “We’re as central to Sera’s wanderings as anywhere else I suppose. And she’s already running out of room at  _the Den.”_

The closest thing Sera had to a permanent residence was her room at the tavern in Smoke’s Valley. Dagna had her space at the forge, but she wanted her own lab, something she didn’t have to share with Harritt and a bunch of apprentices. She and Fin shared space well enough on occasion, but she needed her own, especially now that Fin had taken Hope on as his first apprentice.

“Just as well,” he mused. Cullen pulled her close to his side and they stood, staring up at the softly glowing shield. “We’ll need the rooms.”

“Word from Barris then?”

Cullen nodded. “There is another group waiting. If I don’t send word of refusal, they’ll arrive sometime at the end of Justinian.”

“How many this time?”

With Cassandra’s support, they had helped a small number of templars toward recovery over the years. It was one of the reasons Essa had built on so grand a scale.

“Four.”

“Oh…” her eyes rounded in concern and she reached up, fingers trailing his cheek as she thought it over. “That’s a good deal more at one time than…”

“Barris is sending a healer, someone Vivienne highly recommends, and Robert has asked to stay on after Summerday. He grew up wanting to join the order. I think he see this as a chance to still serve.”

“You Rutherfords.” Essa smiled gently. “So blighted noble.”

He didn’t mention how much of her life was devoted to service.

“You’re certain about this?” she asked not for the first time in the years since they began building. Essa turned to squint up at him through the waxing morning. “Cullen…we might never know peace again.”

He laughed, reached to pull her back into his arms. For a moment he held her, content with the quiet moments they could take when they wanted them, more grateful than he could express for the family that gathered around them.

“We haven’t exactly been hiding since you disbanded the Inquisition.” Cullen dropped a kiss on her cheek. “And I would say we’ve known a fair amount of peace since then.”

He glanced at the shield, then to the arrow below it that pointed up toward the house. It wasn’t visible from the road, most people would still have to stumble into Honnleath to ask directions.

“No one is going to come upon us by accident. This is just here for those already invited, or already searching. ” He turned her in his arms, bumped her chin up with his knuckles so that he could hold her gaze. “Are _you_  certain?”

There were laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, and Essa touched them with delicate fingertips as if they were something holy. His headaches were not rare, but they were not severe as they had once been. A low ache like winter on not quite old joints. The furrows that still occasionally marred his brow on nights when he couldn’t sleep or after particularly vivid nightmares were fainter now, shallower than persisting contentment.

“I’m certain.” She slipped her arm around his waist and began tugging him slowly back toward their home.  “But ask me again after the house is full and I’ve moved into the barn.”

 


	12. Grilled Cheese

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some smutty fluff. Seven years post-Inquisition, four years post-trespasser. Cullen x Essa.

 

Essa collapsed face first on the bed. Her breath sighed out on a satisfied groan as she flailed her hand behind her reaching for him. This was it, she thought not for the first time in seven years. This was happiness she could never deserve.

“You know what we need,” Cullen said, falling forward to crush her into the mattress with his weight.

She knew every inch of sweat-damp skin, had traced scars and planes, sharp ridges and jagged peaks until she wondered if she didn’t know his landscapes better than her own.

“Water?” she asked, voice still hoarse from pleasures that had only grown more treasured with familiarity. “An entire pie.”

She blew her hair out of her face, turned her head toward his clumsy kiss.

“Well, yes.” He shifted forward, hips aligning perfectly had they both not already been utterly spent. “But I was thinking about those sandwiches…”

He sighed longingly, moved her hair from her neck, and placed a kiss at her nape.

“What sandwiches?”

She could go for one now, she thought. Ham, coarse mustard, dark bread. Her stomach rumbled and his answered. Essa smiled.

“The ones Nadie makes. Cheese between two slices of bread...”

His words dragged down to her shoulder and he sighed again in remembered pleasure.

“Toasted until it’s melting out the edges…”

She didn’t often hear him wax poetic about food, but now his voice was heavy, faraway. Were she the jealous type and not currently worn out from his attentions, Essa might have envied this mythic sandwich.

“Please tell me you have not been pining for grilled cheese since we left Skyhold.”

“Not since Skyhold,” he chuckled. “I had one every night when we visited Ola and Nadie’s family in Haven.”

“Cullen, love…that was last year.” She pushed up against him and he rolled over, sliding to the bed beside her. “They aren’t that hard to make.”

She flipped over onto her back and his hands roamed over her in lazy, conversant sweeps.

“I’ve tried to make them.” He traced patterns over her ribs with one hand, tunneled his other arm beneath her neck and pulled her close. “But they always burn and the cheese doesn’t melt properly.”

“You should have said something,” Essa laughed softly. “Oh, I don’t know,  _years ago_. I can teach you how to make a grilled cheese.”

She yawned, scooted closer toward him fully intending to drift into a short, blissful nap.

“Really?” There was too much hope in his voice.

Essa grumbled when the cool press of his body drew away and he hopped out of bed, every movement light and too damn jovial for this time of night.

“Now?” She tipped her head back, stared upside down at him as he pulled his sleep pants back on.

“You wanted pie,” he reminded her.

“Yes, but I could have just sent you for pie.”

He bent and placed a kiss on her nose. “My gratitude will be undying.”

“How undying are we talking?” She waggled her brows at him and he pursed his lips, pretending to consider.

“You know that thing we hardly ever do…?”

Essa sat up. “The one because you think you’re too civilized or the one because you think it makes the Maker weep?”

His laughter washed through the dim room, bright and warm.

“Either,” he said in exasperation. “Or both. I am a desperate man and I am begging you, Essa Donya Rutherford.”

“We can’t have that.” She grabbed his discarded tunic, slipped it on over her head. “You know…it really is just bread and cheese and heat, right?”

“And magic,” he complained.

“You’re going to think you got the bad end of the deal,” she warned, padding through their quiet cottage to the kitchen.

“Hardly.” He caught her in his arms, dropped a kiss on her smiling mouth. “And I don’t think we make the Maker weep.”

 


	13. Stanton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slothquisitor asked for Cari and Krem after Inquisition, endearments or slow dancing. Absolute fluff. This occurs about twelve years after Inquisition (9 years after Trespasser).

The morning was quiet and new. Dawn pearled soft with dew through the open windows, stirred lazily through pale, linen curtains, slanted across the hardwood floor to tease the edge of a rag rug, now more rag than rug. Nadie had made her a new one—a half dozen new ones over the years—but Cari still kept that one by their bed, and stood each morning on the foundation of so much love before she began her day. The morning was soft, a yearning of potential just over the mountains. Soon the valley would fill with noise, but for now, there was only the distant sound of the falls and the graceful ballad Cari was humming.

“Good morning.” She knew he was awake, but he still called to her, if for nothing else but to watch her turn back toward the bed, a smile lighting her face.

“Good morning,” Cari said, eyes bright and full of love, as if they had not woken together so many times before. “Essa’s already at the stables,” she warned him. “I heard Cacique shouting to her.”

Essa had returned for planting then. Krem chuckled. Smoke’s Valley came alive when she was in residence. The quietude of the morning would soon be lost completely, forgotten until the next.

If they were lucky anyway. The mornings weren’t always quiet. Sometimes little feet thundered down the hall before Krem was fully awake. Less and less often now that Stanton had convinced Gabby she was too old to run to mother and father for every little thing, but sometimes she forgot, woke them with squeals and kisses and hay that smelled like starshine.

“What are you thinking about?” Cari asked, dragging her brush slowly through long waving tresses. There was silver amid the sun streaks, and she pretended to mind the latter much less than the former.

He knew she treasured both. “Everything,” he smiled.

Life was more than he had dared dreamed and Krem didn’t know if he would ever stop marveling at it. A home, a family. The Chargers always, but he also had his own. Something just for him , and she had built it with him, tenacious in her grace.

“Ten years,” he said.

Cari grinned, paused in her ministrations to wipe a tear from her eye.

“I know,” she sighed. “I can hardly believe it.”

She shook her head. “I think Cullen is going to give him Folly’s colt.” She shook her head. “He really does spoil them.”

Krem laughed. “Your fault entirely.”

Krem slipped out bed, padded quietly across the room to stand beside her. She tipped her head up to meet his kiss, a gentle play as familiar and perfect as walking home after being on the road. Cari wrapped both arms around his waist, pressed her cheek against the worn cotton of his pajama shirt.

“I suppose it is. I can’t say I regret it.”

Stanton had come to them the first winter after they wed. A babe left in a basket on the doorstep of the cottage Essa had built for them after she disbanded the Inquisition. They hadn’t stayed often in the valley then. Cari had spent most of the year between Clifton and Skyhold, Krem beside her more months than not. Still, the chantry at Clifton had a small but proper foundling house, and everyone knew it. There had been something of a scandal that Cari was taking in any in need and not just humans, raising them in the shadow of a military installation.

She had been rather proud, not that she would admit it. Krem was probably the least surprised to find a child left for them, and certainly not as shocked as Cullen when Cari named the baby after him. Krem grinned.  The man had gone as pale as a new father when Cari handed him Stanton.

_“I’m an uncle.”_

_“You’re already an uncle,” Essa laughed._

_“But this one,” Cullen had held the child out for Essa to rub dirt across his cheek. “This one is Cari’s.”_

“They’ve made good god parents,” she mused, rubbing her cheek against his stomach in that absent way she had. “Do you think we can ship him to Honnleath when he becomes a recalcitrant adolescent?”

Krem laughed. “Your sister would kill us. She gets little enough quiet as is with Fin’s growing brood just down the way.”

Cari placed her brush down on the vanity table. “Maker, Krem, how are we all parents?”

“Not all of us,” Krem said, teasing her just as he had the day they decided to keep Stanton as their own. “You’re too vibrant and beautiful to be someone’s mother.”

Cari’s smirk was faint, eyes dancing merrily through the silver light.

“And you’re far too handsome and free to be someone’s father,” she gave the next line back to him, lifted her face for the kiss she knew he waited to brush over her forehead. “But we are. Maker’s breath, Krem. We are.”

She wiped another tear from her cheek. “Stanton’s ten years old today.”

There was wonder in her voice; it shone quietly in her face, something fine and precious and glad gleaming in the corners of her eyes.

“He is. And there will be food and dancing tonight, and he and his sister will likely be grumpy from not enough sleep and too much sugar tomorrow.” He stepped back, held out one hand to her. “My lady?”

“My love.” Her eyes crinkled, smile tugging her lips up as she slowly slipped her hand in his.

Krem tugged her to her feet, pulled her close.

“What are you doing?” she whispered as he picked up the tune she had dropped earlier.

“Dancing,” he said, shifting them lightly from one foot to the other.

“But there’s no music.”

Krem kissed her, a quick peck to her thoughtfully pursed lips. “You are my music.”

 


	14. Geri's Monuments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, I was forced to feel more than I had planned one day...have some sad/sweet post-trespasser angst? I mean it’s kinda angsty, but not a lot? tw: mention of death, mention of animal death. nothing graphic: old age. grief, loss, healing. Cullen and Essa.

Some days, when the sun slanted just warm enough through the trees to burnish the edges of autumn leaves, she could still hear him crunching across a thick carpet of harvest browns and russets. Still smell salt sweat and good earth and the crisp thrill of freedom, a hint of cold tangling in that first breathless laugh when he shoved his nose into the offering of her hands, his lips rustling against her palm demanding treats. She still waited for him to meet her at the gate, nicker raised into an impatient squeal after she had been gone too long or when he was in a hurry for his breakfast.

Geri had been serious about his grain. The Maker could have set the sun by that horse’s grumbling belly, though it hadn’t once missed a meal that she knew of. Essa would never see another sunrise when she didn’t feel that short drop of urgency to get to the barn on time.

He’d had her well-trained.

Essa knew she was lucky. His passing had been as much as any could hope for. At the end of a long, happy life and peaceful enough that the trauma of his leaving did not eclipse the quiet persistence of his absence nor the enduring beauty of his life. But by the Mabari how she missed him! 

She missed him every day—more than anything else she had lost--and while she knew it was hard for Cullen to understand, he tried. Really that was all that mattered. He couldn’t understand that her first flight had been just behind Geri’s shoulders. Would never know that the first full breath she had taken after her magic nearly destroyed her was the morning Seanna talked her into taking the cantankerous bay instead of the chestnut her father had offered.

There was an unpolished splendor in horses. Some possessed more than others, but they all carried it, running beneath their skin in a shiver like wild magic. Something beyond the tainted wonder of the Fade, a whisper of the Maker’s touch before he forgot how to love his flawed, faltering children, when every breath was glory unfettered. Geri had been as much stardust as balm, and she had soared as she grew into herself, a decade trapped within Ostwick Circle falling slowly beneath the forder’s hooves, cast across the Hinterlands like pyre ash.

“Are you alright?” 

Cullen’s arms wrapped around her and he pulled her back against his chest, laced the fingers of his left hand with hers, and nuzzled a cold cheek against her neck, breath frosting the air beside her face. Essa called her magic, let it warm the night around them and chase away the chill.

“Thank you.”

“Of course,” she smiled, leaned back more fully into his arms. “And I am,” she added, answering his question. “Just missing him.”

She didn’t have to tell him who, even after so many years. She didn’t need do any more than stare out across a pasture empty of all but velvet gloaming. The other horses were tucked in for the night, but Geri had slept outside no matter the weather. He hadn’t been much for a roof over his head unless Essa was sleeping in his stall.

“Sometimes I feel like I didn’t do right by him,” she whispered, voice catching on old fears. “I should have conquered half of Thedas, renamed a dozen cities for him, had his face stamped on the backs of coins.”

Cullen chuckled, the soft sound holding comfort’s gentle humor and still again more love than she had ever hoped for.

“He wouldn’t have cared,” he murmured next to her ear. “And you know it. He was happiest with a belly of sweet grain and a yard full of children.”

“But I didn’t give him that last.” Funny that she never regretted not having more children until she saw one of their nieces or nephews clamboring over Geri’s broad back.

“Maybe not ours,” Cullen amended. “But he had the best of all worlds with Hope and the herds of visiting Rutherfords and Nadie’s brood. Then he got to send them home when he wanted to grump about.”

Geri had been a consummate grump, ears lolly in a mule’s parody, great sighs echoing loud and metallic from his nose.

“He did.” Essa let go of his hand, dashed a glitter of teardrops from her cheeks. “I just…”

She laughed suddenly. “I love him so much,” she confessed, still surprised by its vividness. “And I’m so grateful for the force that he was in my life. I want statues in his honor.”

Cullen took her hand again, brushed a kiss across her knuckles before he tucked her arms within the laces of his. “They’re out there you know.”

“What?”

“Geri’s monuments,” he explained. “Every child he loved, every heart he lifted. They’re his legacy.”

He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, answering with careful strength the tension that coiled through her body as she fought back a sob.

“And so are you,” he continued quietly. “Everything you’ve done since that day at Redcliffe Farms. Every struggle, every fight, every triumph. They’ve been as much his accomplishment as yours.”

She lifted her face, fought for an even breath.

“So, yes, my darling.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “He has monuments.”

Essa stared out into the deepening twilight, watched the first stars of Equinor bloom pale against the violet sky. “They’ll never be enough,” she said. “Not for a heart so big.”

“No,” Cullen agreed. “They won’t.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> And that's it. :) I have (at present) no plans to write more fan fiction. I will continue to organize, possibly put in an author's note about my process (as there are real reason for the sometimes first person bits and out of chronology shuffles). Thank you again to everyone who came along with me on this journey. I hope you've enjoyed it even half as much as I did. <3


End file.
